As drive-through testing sites close, Alaska begins ‘privatizing COVID’ - Alaska Public Media

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Most drive-up COVID testing sites in Anchorage are set to close by June 30 as demand drops and funding runs out. The few sites that will stay open aren’t offering testing to uninsured Alaskans.

Jessica Haley administers COVID tests at the Fairweather drive-through site on Lake Otis Parkway in Anchorage on June 15, 2022. Fairweather stopped testing uninsured people after federal funding ran out in March. Haley says it’s been hard to turn people away. Federal funding to test uninsured people for COVID-19 ran out on March 22. Soon after, the testing sites run by Fairweather in Anchorage started turning away people without insurance.

“We are getting a lot of tourists from all over the world, maybe not insured, wanting to get tested because they flew and now they have symptoms,” she said. “Or they traveled and they need to get home, but they don’t have insurance.” Capstone kept testing uninsured people after March 22. Billing insurance for other patients has allowed them to make up the cost. But now that demand for testing is down, that strategy doesn’t work, Jones said.

“We’ve been planning for the fact that those funds have been going away, and so some of those contracts are scheduled to end as that funding dries up,” Zink said.

 

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