How to Get PrEP: prescription, telehealth & cost

Getting PrEP in 4 steps

Getting PrEP through telehealth (online)

If a clinic isn’t nearby or convenient, telehealth has made PrEP far easier to start — you can get an online PrEP prescription and have the medication delivered to your door:

• You complete a video or online visit with a licensed clinician.
• They order the required lab tests — often with a mail-in home test kit or a nearby lab.
• Your prescription is filled and delivered to you (or picked up locally).
• Follow-up testing is repeated by mail or lab every few months.

What PrEP costs — and how to pay little or nothing

Cost is the barrier people worry about most, but it rarely needs to stop you:

• Insurance & Medicaid (US): because PrEP has a top (“Grade A”) preventive rating, most plans and Medicaid must cover the medication and its follow-up visits/labs with no out-of-pocket cost.
• Generic Truvada: inexpensive even paying directly — the low-cost backbone of daily PrEP.
• If you’re uninsured: national programs (for example, Ready, Set, PrEP in the US) provide PrEP medication at no cost for eligible people.
• Manufacturer assistance: copay cards and patient-assistance programs — Gilead Advancing Access (Truvada, Descovy, Yeztugo) and ViiVConnect (Apretude) — can cover much of the cost of the brand and injectable options.
• Medicare & Medicaid: both cover PrEP; Medicare Part D and state Medicaid programs include the pills and injections, usually with little or no cost-sharing.
• Clinics & navigators: sexual-health clinics and PrEP navigators can help you apply for coverage.

Finding PrEP near you

To find a provider close by:

• Use an official HIV-services locator (for example, the US locator at locator.hiv.gov) to find PrEP providers by area.
• Contact a local sexual-health / GUM clinic, community health center, or Planned Parenthood.
• Ask your regular doctor — any licensed clinician can prescribe PrEP.
• No nearby clinic? A telehealth PrEP service can reach most areas.

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