LINKING TO CARE & STAYING ON TREATMENT

WellFlorida’s High Impact Prevention (HIP) helps people living with HIV link to care and stay on treatment.

Are you living with HIV and need help with:

• Remembering when to take your medications?
• Understanding how to take your meds and what they do?
• Scheduling your medical appointments?
• Getting enough to eat? Taking your meds on a full stomach at regular times helps the medicine work!
• Connecting to other resources, like housing, food stamps, transportation, job listings, day care and more?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then call us today or fill out the Contact Us form. A Link to Care and Stay on Treatment Coordinator will meet with you one-on-one, and call with regular reminders to take your meds and go to appointments. They will help you get the resources you need so you can focus on staying healthy

Once you receive a diagnosis of HIV, it’s important to get connected to care and stay on treatment. HIV care and treatment are most effective when you actively take part. That means taking your medications as prescribed, going to your medical appointments and communicating honestly with your healthcare provider.

Once you are on a treatment plan, we’ll work with you and your healthcare provider toward getting and keeping an undetectable viral load. This means the amount of HIV in your blood (viral load) is so low that a test can’t detect it. People living with HIV cannot transmit the virus if they have an undetectable viral load for at least 6 months and take antiviral therapy (ART) medications as prescribed.

When HIV is in your body without the prescribed medications, it makes more of itself which can make you sick and more likely to spread HIV to sexual and injecting partners, and from mother to baby during pregnancy, during delivery and breastfeeding. Staying on medications as prescribed is not always easy. HIP helps people living with HIV link to care and stay on treatment because UNDETECTED = UNTRANSMITTABLE (U = U). It’s the best thing you can do to stay healthy and to keep those you care about safe.

OUR LINK & STAY TEAM

RESOURCES

Learn about programs for people with HIV who are uninsured or underinsured and need healthcare and support services by visiting www.HIVCarePrograms.org. The website is a partnership among WellFlorida Council, Ryan White HIV patient care providers in Area 3/13 and the North Central Florida CARE Consortium. Programs include:

• Ryan White, a federally funded program, offers HIV-positive persons assistance with services not covered under other programs.
• The Housing Opportunities Program, also known as HOP, assists HIV-positive persons with temporary assistance for their housing needs and to prevent homelessness.
• The AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) helps HIV-positive persons stay healthy by assisting with the purchase of HIV prescription medications. 

The first step to participating in these programs is to call 1-866-901-9646.