Listen up: The Affordable Care Act includes free HIV screening and counseling as one of eight preventive services for women that private insurance plans must cover, without cost-sharing. That means about 47 million women in these kinds of plans will be better able to control their health care.

“We are pleased [that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius] singled out HIV testing as one of the additional preventive services private insurance plans must cover for women, many of whom often do not realize they are at risk of HIV,” says Marylin Merida, president of The AIDS Institute.

The law is a big deal because of the more than 1.1 million people living with HIV in the United States, nearly one quarter are women. What’s more, among all people living with HIV in the country, almost 20 percent don’t know they are infected.

What does this mean for you? Well, if you don’t know your HIV status and you’re in an eligible plan, why not just go get tested?