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The MISTER Program’s HIV Testing Center provides free HIV counseling & testing services. Our counselors are able to emotionally support both negative and positive clients, and help in identifying high risk behaviors and developing a risk reduction plan to reduce the chances of getting infected for negative individuals or re-infected for positive individuals.
Get tested and WIN two ways! First, by getting tested, you will know your status – and knowledge is power. Second, all persons obtaining an HIV test each month are enrolled in a monthly drawing and the winner will receive a $25 gift card for a great item such as iTunes, Amazon, Kroger, or other related card. AND, each quarter (four times a year), a drawing will be held from the pool of all persons tested in the previous three months and that person will win an item valued at approximately $200-$300 (such as a Kindle Fire or comparable prize!). The winner's name for any gift certificate or prize is never released to protect confidentiality.
For more information about the HIV testing services at the MISTER Center of Positive Impact, please visit the MISTER center website.
SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT ‘ANONYMOUS’ HIV TESTING
Why there is no need to have an anonymous HIV test….
•Should you test negative, no one outside the MISTER Center will ever have access to your name, address and telephone number – and since you are testing at the Center, we must assume that you trust us enough to conduct this important test and rest assured we take your privacy and confidentiality very seriously;
•Should you test preliminary positive (the first oral swab we conduct), again, no one outside this agency will ever have access to your name, address and telephone number;
•Should you test preliminary positive and have confirmatory testing (the second oral swab we would conduct if your first swab was reactive), we could only submit that to the State Lab with your name, address and telephone number – in other words, we cannot conduct an anonymous confirmatory test, and so even if you started out as an anonymous test you would have to ultimately provide your name, address and telephone number to have your preliminary positive test confirmed;
•By testing confidentially, should your test be negative, we can provide you a results card documenting the date you tested and your test result;
•On a more mundane level, because the CDC funds us to do HIV testing and expects us to conduct a certain number of unduplicated tests each year, we do not get to “count” any anonymous tests since we cannot prove that the person is unduplicated; in other words, you could come here and test anonymously 5 times in a year and it would look like 5 different tests, when really it was only 1 person – what that means on a practical level is if we are obligated to test 4000 people a year, and we do test 4000 people but 1000 are anonymous, we only get to count 3000 of those tests and risk getting our funding cut which would mean less free testing we could offer you and your community;
•Finally, the MISTER Center has moved to a better client management system to make accessing services easier and faster; after completing the initial intake at your first visit to the Center, you will be assigned a unique ID specific to you, and this ID is not disclosed to any other outside agency; in the future when you check in, you will simply provide that unique ID and will only have to update any information that has changed since your last visit, and avoid completing the longer new client intake packet each time.
The bottom line: There are no advantages to having an anonymous versus confidential test; if your result is negative, no one will ever know you had the test except for staff in the Center, and if your result is confirmed positive, you would have to provide your real name and contact information to have treatment anyway.
We hope you understand, and if there are any questions you have to make you feel more comfortable testing confidentially, your counselor will be happy to answer them.
Thank you for trusting the MISTER Center with your HIV testing needs!
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