April 14, 2021
The Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) recently announced the Health Center COVID-19 Testing Supply Distribution Program: a new partnership between the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense to support the Biden Administration’s National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness. This program will supply health centers and look-alikes with free rapid testing supplies, including point-of-care analyzers and test kits. The goal of this program is to ensure that health centers have access to supplies, materials, and real-time information needed to support COVID-19 testing.
At this time, BPHC is unable to provide additional details about the manufacturer of the analyzers and test kits. The anticipated manufacturer has an Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for COVID-19 rapid, point-of-care tests. BPHC does not anticipate any limitation on the availability of supplies from the manufacturer. And are unable at this time to answer questions submitted through the BPHC Contact Form about the manufacturer.
Health Centers and Health Center Program Look-Alikes:
To best meet your needs based on the resources available, BPHC needs to understand your testing supply needs for the next few months. BPHC will send a questionnaire to the Project Director listed in HRSA’s Electronic Handbooks to gather input from all health centers and Health Center Program look-alikes.
This questionnaire must be completed in one sitting—you will not be able to save your progress. You also will not be able to change your responses once you’ve submitted.
We recommend that you take the following steps prior to beginning the questionnaire:
Responses to the questionnaire are due no later than 11:59 p.m. your local time on Wednesday, April 21.
If you have questions, contact Health Center Program Support online. Select “COVID-19 Testing Supply Distribution Program” as the issue type—the sixth option on the “Health Center Program Questions” screen. Choose sub-category “Testing Supply Distribution Program Inquiry.”
You can also call Health Center Program Support at 877-464-4772, option 2, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET, Monday-Friday (except federal holidays).