The result of the test for COVID-19 in New York has to wait for weeks: if you want faster, pay exorbitant prices

Conventional clinics in New York report COVID-19 test results within days or even weeks. However, wealthy citizens do not want to wait long, preferring to pay to get results within 24 hours. The newspaper writes about the situation with tests in the city The New York Times.

An increasing number of New Yorkers are looking to get tested for the coronavirus, and large laboratories are trying to meet the growing demand. However, wealthier people and other privileged specialists avoid long waiting times for results - from 4 days to more than two weeks - by going to private clinics.

Some pay several thousand dollars a year for membership in expensive clinics, which gives them access to rapid testing. Others go to small laboratories or doctors' offices that have their own equipment and can provide results in a few hours or less.

“We've tested 12 billionaires so far,” said Dr. Andrew Brooks, CEO of Infinity BiologiX, a New Jersey company that developed the saliva-assisted coronavirus test. The latter is often used by professional athletes, university staff and financial institutions. "This problem is universal."

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Small lab managers in New York also reported an increase in demand for rapid tests. Calls to them come not only from doctors who have been approached by wealthy patients, but also from companies that need fast and reliable testing. Employees of banks, transport and other companies come to small laboratories to make tests.

Horace Mann, a private school in the Bronx that costs more than $ 50 a year, has entered into an agreement with the screening company Sterling. Employees, students and their parents can now apply for testing there.

Some doctors' offices offer ready-made results in less than 24 hours. This will cost their clients $ 150-200 per test.

From the outset, the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities between people, including access to quality health care. In the early weeks of the outbreak, those with money and connections found ways to get tests when there weren't many. They now get faster results on these tests.

As reliable and fast results become available to those who can afford them, frustration is growing in New York about delays in taking standardized tests that people do for free but don't get results within days or and weeks. Public health experts say such a delay could make test results much less useful given that people infected with the virus could infect others during this time.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved several affordable rapid tests that can produce results within hours, but are not widely available yet.

Officials in New York believe reliable diagnostic testing and rapid contact tracing are key to keeping infection rates low in the state. Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio blame large labs for delaying the processing of test results. While smaller labs can often get results faster, they are not enough to handle city-wide tests.

The average waiting time for coronavirus test results in New York has increased from two days to three days since last month. The City Department of Health explains this, first of all, by the slow processing of results in the Quest Diagnostics laboratories. The city opened several rapid test sites this month, promising results within 24 hours.

How quickly a person can get test results depends on how quickly the patient needs a quick response. For patients in the emergency department or hospitalized, test results are most likely to arrive during the day. But for many others, the timing is much less predictable.

In one week in early August, a quarter of New York City's coronavirus test results were obtained more than 13 days after the sample was collected, according to the Health Department. About a third of the tests were performed by the Quest laboratory.

Quest, which can process about 150 coronavirus tests a day, recently said it had reduced test run times to two days.

Those with a demanding clientele turn to small laboratories.

“When we started out, we had a regular Quest lab and we got results in seven days, which is free,” said Matthew Priddy, a physician who runs a medical practice in Indianapolis.

So he found a small local lab where his clients can get test results in about two days, paying between $ 150 and $ 600 a month in membership fees. He refused to name the laboratory so that others would not start going there.

“I am selfish for my patients,” he said.

Another diagnostic laboratory, Lenco, located in Brooklyn, processes results for hospitals and doctors' offices, as well as for expensive private clinics such as Sollis. The annual individual membership fee in the latter is up to $ 5 thousand.

The demand for testing at the Sollis clinic is partly due to the fact that its members returned from so-called hot spots, where the risk of contracting the coronavirus is high. This was told by Andrew Olanow, one of the founders of the clinic. The company has approximately 4000 members in the New York City area and has opened an office on the West Coast in recent weeks. Test results in Sollis are processed fairly quickly - from 24 to 48 hours.

One of the clinic's clients, Samira Shamoon, said she got quick results at Sollis, of which she became a member at the height of the outbreak in New York in March. This happened as she was in a rush to move from her Upper East Side co-op to the family home in Bridgehampton.

“I needed results by two in the afternoon the next day,” Shamun said. She said that she had a fever the day before an important dinner with a client. The test results were ready even earlier - at 11:55 am, the test was negative.

Shamoon said other people she knew from the Hampton also applied for quick tests at Sollis. One friend of hers took the coronavirus test eight times.

Shamun paid $ 12 for a membership for herself, her husband, and two elderly parents. Each home visit costs $ 1000. “This is a fee for immediate treatment,” she said. And she added that the cost of the test itself is covered by her health insurance.

Lenco, which has processed about 5% of New York lab tests in the past week, has been able to deliver rapid results by limiting the number of tests it performs, said Dr. Robert Boorstein. “We do about 2000 tests a day. They call us to do 1000 more tests, or 2000 more tests, ”he said.

Some doctors guarantee quick results because they have diagnostic machines to process the tests in their offices. This was revealed by Scott Pope of Roamd, a company that partners with doctors around the country that charge memberships of up to $ 40 a year.

Others are trying to get fast point-of-care testing machines, such as those used in the White House. Devices that are increasingly appearing outside of exclusive parties and social gatherings deliver results in 30 minutes.

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Pope said he was aware of several doctors who ordered such machines only to be redirected to the federal government.

But there are still not enough devices. Therefore, they use a different method, the antigen test, which is considered less accurate than the more standard testing procedure used by most laboratories. And for travel where a negative test is required, antigen tests are often not accepted.

While rich people and many businesses rely on the same tests that everyone else in America uses, some are simply finding ways to get test results faster.

John Catsimatidis, a New York City billionaire, said he turned to Studio Med to check himself and about 100 people in his office. The execution time for each test was 24 hours.

For quick results and tests that don't require a nasal swab, some companies, sports leagues and universities have turned to saliva testing.

Infinity BiologiX has developed the first such approved test that gives results within one or two days. These tests are preferred by PGA Tour and Major League Soccer athletes.

Companies are increasingly looking for customized testing methods in hopes of getting around the uncertainty in the larger market, Brooks said. The executives of these companies often take tests themselves. “First, they want to make sure it works,” he said. “Secondly, they want to be able to show that if it's good for me, it's good for everyone else. And thirdly, they want to know this for themselves. "

As ForumDaily New York wrote earlier:

• Metrics in City and State of New York are among the lowest in all of America. Back in the spring, it was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Nearly 1,5 million coronavirus antibody tests were recently conducted in New York City. The data obtained helped to understand how deeply the virus has penetrated rich and poor areas and who is at risk in the event of a second wave of a pandemic.
• Experts compared the coronavirus to the Spanish flu that hit New York in 1918 and killed about 33 of its residents. Read about what these pandemics have in common. here.