Ishida said if a patient comes into the office saying they know they've been exposed to an STD, the doctors can get a jump start on treatment, but they need to know which disease they're dealing with. For example, if the patient found out that their partner has gonorrhea, doctors can test for just that STD and save both the patient and the SHC a lot of time. The HIV test, like other individual tests, can only detect HIV if it were contracted three to six months ago. It takes time to show up, but it can be passed to a partner soon after it's contracted, she added. The fastest growing group contracting the HIV virus is heterosexual women between the ages of 15 and 24.
Anonymous testing is done after the patients watch an informational video.
One of the two differences between the two types of testing is that the only thing that ties a patient to his or her test results is a number code. No one has any way of knowing that he or she was even tested. Another difference is that the anonymous test is not a blood test like, unlike the confidential test, it is done orally with a toothbrush-like swab. The testing procedures for STDs for men and women differ for obvious anatomical reasons. Both men and women can ask for either a male or female physician.