The Biden administration announced the new guidelines as it continued to work to get coronavirus tests to people regardless of their insurance status.

WASHINGTON — Private insurers will soon have to cover the cost of eight at-home coronavirus tests per member per month, the Biden administration said Monday.

But if a health plan does not establish a network of “preferred” retailers where patients can get tests covered upfront, it will be responsible for whatever claims its patients submit for their eight monthly rapid tests, with no limit on the price.

“I would love to see a more comprehensive national testing policy where these tests are free for everybody, regardless of insurance status,” she said.

The new Biden policy will not apply retroactively to at-home tests that Americans have already purchased.

The administration is working on other efforts to get coronavirus tests to people regardless of their insurance status, including a plan to deliver 500 million free rapid tests to the homes of Americans who order them, starting later this month.

That plan, along with the new rules for insurers announced Monday, is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration in recent weeks to catch up to skyrocketing demand for rapid tests, as virus cases have exploded around the nation with the arrival of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

The administration has also announced plans to make tens of millions of free tests available for uninsured Americans at health clinics and other sites in underserved communities.

The low availability could hinder the rollout of the reimbursement policy, said Lindsey Dawson, a policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation who has researched the availability of rapid tests.

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers wrote to President Biden on Sunday pressing him to expand access to rapid tests, including by manufacturing enough for every American to take at least one a week.

Biden announced the reimbursement plan in early December, he drew skepticism from some public health experts who wondered why the United States was not buying tests in bulk and offering them at little to no cost, as European countries have done.

At the time, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, dismissed the idea of a sprawling program to provide free tests to Americans.

Biden announced that his administration would offer 500 million free at-home tests for the nation’s 330 million residents, available to order through a website that is supposed to debut this month.

Biden administration officials have said they are being careful not to appropriate tests that are already set to be delivered to retailers like CVS and Walgreens.

The success of the administration’s efforts to get more tests to Americans could also be complicated by preliminary research suggesting that rapid antigen tests may miss some Omicron infections even when people are carrying high levels of the virus