Not always! In many cases you can walk into a pharmacy, provide your insurance card, and walk out with 8 free tests! No paperwork or reimbursement required.
If you have health insurance in the U.S. (via your employer, Medicare Part B, Medicaid, or the Affordable Care Act marketplace) **EACH PERSON** in your family covered on that plan can get 8 rapid tests *per month*. Yes, this means that if you have a family of 5 (like this Nerdy Girl), you can get 40 rapid tests covered by your insurance a month! 
Most importantly, in many cases you don’t need to file any paperwork. Just visit a pharmacy or store that your health plan has designated as “in network”, provide your insurance card at the pharmacy counter, and request 8 tests for each person covered by the plan! EDITED: There are some exceptions as noted by our readers in comments on Facebook.
Walgreens and CVS have even developed a handy tool on their websites that allows you to check if tests are in stock at a store near you, enter your insurance information, and order tests for pick-up, for most insurance types. Check out “Links and Resources” below for those links, as well as more information.
Stay safe. Stay well.
Those Nerdy Girls
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Links and Resources
Visit here to order for pick-up at Walgreens.
OR here to order for pick-up at CVS.
Don’t forget, right now you can also get 4 free rapid tests per household, regardless of whether you have insurance or not. See here for more info.
For more into on COVID-19 tests being covered by insurance, see here.
For our recent post on when to test, see here.
And for our recent post on extended rapid test expiration dates, see here.
