A few months ago, I contacted Vaden, Stanford's Health Center, to see how much their hepatitis B screenings would cost.  I was told by one of the directors it would be free, then was told by a nurse it would be $31, then told it would only be free to those who had never been vaccinated or had a family member wiht hepatitis B.  In short, their policies were confusing, and the staff all had different ideas about how to deal with patients who wanted hep B services.  On top of that, a friend of mine asked to get a screening at Vaden and apparently was only given the antibody test and not the antigen test.  This didn't tell her anything about her infection status.  Clearly, Vaden could use a little booster shot in their hep B awareness department. 

Recently, the program officer from the Asian Liver Center met with the clinical director at Vaden, and together they were able to come up with a great solution!  Luckily, the clinical director is very supportive of hepatitis B awareness and prevention among the API population at Stanford, and she agreed that Vaden should be offering reliable and FREE hep B screening to those at high-risk.  In the coming weeks, we will be working with Vadent to devise an automated system on their website so that students can schedule hep B screening appointments and get a risk-assessment at the same time.  If students fit the criteria for being high-risk (foreign-born, child of foreign-born parents, never been vaccinated, etc), then they automatically get a free screening.  Future plans include educating the physicians and nurses at Vaden as well. 

This comes at a great time for Team HBV Stanford as we start planning our own outreach events.  Now we can confidently tell students that they can get a quick and easy screening at NO COST (!) from their friendly neighborhood health center.