Bacon's Rebellion

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COVID-19 Testing at Urgent Care Clinics

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by

James A. Bacon
in

BetterMed urgent care facility in Richmond area

by James C. Sherlock

This information on Urgent Care Clinic testing in Virginia is a follow-up to yesterday’s information on testing in general. It was developed by web searches in about two hours. It is representative, but not necessarily complete. The Governor can direct his staff to provide compete information updated daily on a virginia.gov webpage if he chooses.

As far as I know, all hospitals in Virginia offer COVID-19 testing through their emergency rooms. I have not checked on stand-alone emergency rooms.

Wherever a patient gets tested he or she should be given a Fact Sheet for Patients that contains information to help understand the risks and benefits of using this test and what FDA Emergency Use Authorization applies.

Richmond

The following Urgent Care Clinics offer COVID-19 testing within the city limits of Richmond, Virginia:

1. BetterMed Urgent Care
Regency Square 1380 N Parham Rd, Richmond, VA 23229 – open for COVID-19 testing only. Curbside. (804) 821-0010

BetterMed has additional testing locations in

  • Short Pump, 12214 W. Broad Street Henrico, VA 23233 804-362-8345
  • Ashland, 300 North Washington Highway, Ashland, VA 23005 804-537-2905
  • Chester, 11380 Iron Creek Rd. Chester VA 23831 804-823-9260
  • Fredericksburg, 4901 Plank Rd., Fredericksburg, VA 22407 540-870-6540

NextLab is processing BetterMed results in about a week.

2. Patient First

2205 N Parham Rd, Richmond, VA 23229
Phone: (804) 270-2150

The company website indicates that is the only Patient First clinic currently offering the test.  Turnaround time 2-4 days using LabCorp.

  1. MedExpress Urgent Care
    8040 W. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23294
    (804) 346-0927. LabCorp process the test in 2-5 days.

There are additional urgent care testing sites in the Richmond suburbs. These lists are updated daily so check the corporate websites.

Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia

Inova indicates that Inova Urgent Care Centers at Dulles South, North Arlington and Tysons are operating as Respiratory Illness Clinics. Each provides vehicle-side appointments that are ordered by a physician and scheduled ahead of time to test individuals for COVID-19. The tests are sent out to commercial labs and take about a week to get results.

In Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia Velocity Urgent Care is offering COVID-19 testing at all of their locations. Velocity Urgent Care is a subsidiary of Sentara. Turnaround time is 2-4 days and LabCorp processes the tests. Velocity operates 14 locations across Eastern and Northern Virginia including facilities in Carrolton, Gloucester, Newport News, Norfolk (2), South Boston, Suffolk (2), Virginia Beach (4), Woodbridge and Williamsburg. The Velocity locations at Virginia Beach Red Mill and Newport News J. Clyde Morris are the only ones to offer drive up testing.

Rest of Virginia

MedExpress offers COVID-19 testing in eleven locations in Virginia with LabCorp test processing:

  • Bluefield
  • Charlottesville, Seminole Square
  • Christiansburg
  • Culpeper
  • Danville
  • Harrisonburg
  • Richmond, W. Broad Street
  • Salem
  • Staunton
  • Timberlake, Timberlake Road
  • Winchester, Gateway Drive

I didn’t search other areas of Virginia for this report other than the MedExpress information above, but that is easily done.

Across the country

Most urgent care clinics across the country such are using LabCorp, Quest and other commercial labs to process the tests they offer.

An exception is CVS Health. CVS, in cooperation with federal and state officials is offering rapid (Abbott ID NOW 15 minute test) drive through testing sites in Georgia, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Not Virginia.

Governor Northam’s Team

I have no idea why information on COVID-19 testing at urgent care facilities in the entire Commonwealth is not available on a virginia.gov web page. I also have no idea why the Northam administration has not arranged with CVS for rapid testing in Virginia. Unfortunately, neither does the Governor.

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33 responses to “COVID-19 Testing at Urgent Care Clinics”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    What is the procedure if someone’s test comes back positive?

    1. sherlockj Avatar
      sherlockj

      That person and the local health department are notified. The patient goes to the hospital.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        does the health dept then try to do contact tracing?

        1. Acbar Avatar
          Acbar

          Lotsa luck with the tracing, there! What jurisdiction in Virginia has those kinds of resources currently? But a valid question nonetheless: is tracing supposed to happen under current procedures?

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            so we’re NOT doing contact tracing and do not plan to?

          2. TBill Avatar
            TBill

            Self contact by the patient?
            Fairfax Co Health Dept there are guidelines in the mail today – just got it as I was writing this, but I saw it online yesterday. If you “have symptoms” you are to inform close contacts. Don’t know when/if someone from teh Gov’t helps you with that job.

          3. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            re: ” If you “have symptoms” you are to inform close contacts. Don’t know when/if someone from teh Gov’t helps you with that job.”

            contact tracing is ALL of your contacts – the folks you have been in contact with.

            It IS in the interest of the govt to find any others that are infected and to determine if they infected you or you them…

            If the govt does not know that -the others who are infected will continue to infect others… and every new infection eats us more resources… the idea with contact tracing is to quickly track down all of those who are infected and get them isolated before they infect others.

    2. sherlockj Avatar
      sherlockj

      To be more precise, the local health department and the health provider are notified. The health provider notifies the patient. Then lots of reports are made to the state. Then the Health Commissioner decides what to do if the infected person does not follow the guidelines given him or her by the health provider and local health department. Under the Virginia law, in extremis the Commissioner can order that person arrested.
      For the detailed answer to your other reporting and control questions such as isolation and contact tracing see Regulations for Disease Reporting and Control at http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/content/uploads/sites/13/2018/11/Regulations_for_Disease_Reporting_and_Control.pdf
      No one asked, but the state collects data on race but not class. So we will not find out if poor whites suffer at the same rate as poor African Americans or Hispanics. And we won’t know if college-educated persons of color suffer at the same rate as their fellow people of color that did not graduate from high school.

  2. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    Rapid testing is key. Testing without a doctor’s orders is another key. Drive-through, easy-access testing is another key. Testing without any charge or co-pay whatever is absolutely a key. Why are these obvious elements of a successful Virginia testing program, one that will supply the information actually needed to get people back to work, so difficult to grasp? Why isn’t progress towards each of these a top bullet point on every Governor’s briefing to the public?

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Rapid testing everyone versus rapid testing the contact that are traced?

  3. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    It seems to me that this is the guy to watch:

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-11/u-s-testing-capacity-in-ballpark-for-may-reopening-czar-says

    In a different article I read Adm Giror said we need to conduct 1M tests per day. While that sounds astronomical it’s about one test per American per year. Under that scenario Virginia would have to test 26,000 per day. Yesterday we tested just over 1,400.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      I thought his boss was opposed to widespread testing?

      1. sherlockj Avatar
        sherlockj

        Where did you come up with that? The whole team works for the President.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/04/09/i-dont-think-its-needed-trump-says-widespread-nationwide-testing-isnt-necessary-to-reopen-country/#3e6f0752abf9

  4. DeptOfTyranny Avatar
    DeptOfTyranny

    This is one of those things that surprises me isn’t more well know. I’m in semi-rural Virginia, and these types of facilities have been doing COVID testing for at least three weeks now. I guess this is a matter of private enterprise running circles around bureaucratic government and their crony monopolist friends.

    In one situation I am aware of here in Real Virginia, a local business shut down for a day and half to do sanitization after an employee screened “presumptively positive” at the local urgent care. The employee was in quarantine for several days while awaiting test results. Thankfully, the test results were negative and subject employee has been fine. Undoubtedly, this has happened countless times elsewhere and I can’t help but wonder how much stress, anxiety and financial impacts would have been minimized by a quick turn around test.

  5. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    At the urgent care facilities, can anyone walk in and get a test or do you have to have some symptoms and the doctor at the care center then orders the test?

    1. sherlockj Avatar
      sherlockj

      They each have their own criteria that are based on the state and CDC criteria. You can go to the web site of whichever one you are interested in and find that exact information.

    2. DeptOfTyranny Avatar
      DeptOfTyranny

      As of several weeks ago, you still go through the screening process to determine if you need the actual test. But, isn’t that typical for most testing?

      https://amjmed.org/over-testing-why-more-is-not-better/

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        You know that’s a 2014 article right?

        So if someone goes and gets tested and they are positive – is anyone
        responsible for finding out who they were in contact with and test them?

        1. sherlockj Avatar
          sherlockj

          http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/content/uploads/sites/13/2018/11/Regulations_for_Disease_Reporting_and_Control.pdf

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            “The Board shall provide for the surveillance of and investigation into all preventable diseases and epidemics in this Commonwealth and into the means for the prevention of such diseases and epidemics. Surveillance and investigation may include contact tracing in accordance with the regulations of the Board. When any outbreak or unusual occurrence of a preventable disease shall be identified through reports required pursuant to Article 1 (§ 32.1-35 et seq.) of this chapter, the Commissioner or his designee shall investigate the disease in cooperation with the local health director or directors in the area of the disease. If in the judgment of the Commissioner the resources of the locality are insufficient to provide for adequate investigation, he may assume direct responsibility and exclusive control of the investigation, applying such resources as he may have at his disposal. The Board may issue emergency regulations and orders to accomplish the investigation.”

            The question is – Are we doing this for COVID18 ?

            is this standard procedure or are we not really doing it?

          2. sherlockj Avatar
            sherlockj

            The difference between policy and execution, much of it illustrated in the Virginia Pandemic Response Plan that has been removed from the state website.

        2. DeptOfTyranny Avatar
          DeptOfTyranny

          Yes, that was the point

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Well it truly is. Are we doing contact tracing for COVID19?

            Do we have enough testing capability to do that?

            If someone is found to test positive – are we getting in touch with everyone they came into contact with and testing them ?

            My understanding is that no state – none – have enough testing capability to do that right now – Virginia included.

            We cannot get the economy back open until we can do that according to most scientists.

            Would I like to hear Northam say that and lay out a plan to do it? Yes. If he does not have enough testing capability to do that, what should he do? Tell us that he does not?

  6. DeptOfTyranny Avatar
    DeptOfTyranny

    The other thing that amazes me is just how inept the Health Department seems to be. Living here in Real Virginia, where many of our businesses operate on wells and septic, are increasing harassed by tighter regulatory standards and reporting requirements. Yet, it appears the HD has no idea what resources the medical community has access to as if the Hospitals are the only thing that exist in the HD world.

    Maybe tts better they don’t though, since its obvious these smaller offices are being more responsive without the hand of government being too closely involved. I saw a post from a NC politician claiming Abbott Lads was only producing 400 test a day. Where is he getting his misinformation from?

    1. sherlockj Avatar
      sherlockj

      Abbott Rapid Diagnostics is producing north of 50,000 per day for ID NOW – the 15 minute test. That is the point of care test being used by CVS in Georgia, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
      Abbott Molecular Diagnostics has produced over 1 million Abbott RealTime SARS-C0V-2 assay tests and can produce millions more. Use of the Abbott RealTime SARS-CoV-2 assay is limited to laboratory personnel who have been trained in the procedures of a molecular diagnostic assay and the Abbott m2000 System. This is the million tests that Dr. Birks complained were not being used by labs equipped with m2000 platforms.
      The guy in NC is badly informed. Not an unusual occurrence.

      1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
        Reed Fawell 3rd

        This concluding paragraph quoted below takes one’s breath away. It suggests the state wants to keep the availability of testing sites and opportunities a secret, hidden from Virginia residents. I mean really. Could Virginia’s state government be as careless, uncaring, inept, and incompetent, as this suggests?

        “Governor Northam’s Team

        “I have no idea why information on COVID-19 testing at urgent care facilities in the entire Commonwealth is not available on a virginia.gov web page. I also have no idea why the Northam administration has not arranged with CVS for rapid testing in Virginia. Unfortunately, neither does the Governor.”

        If Sherlock can do it on this blog. Why can’t Governor and his vast bureaucracy with its billions of taxpayer $. And the Governor claims to be long practicing doctor in the state!!!

    2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      In the defense of the state Department of Health, their main mission is public health–seeing low income patients, vaccinations, restaurant inspections, septic tanks, epidemics, etc. They do not regulate the health professions and have little day to day interaction with private medical professions. Their primary function related to hospitals is, as Jim Sherlock has well discussed, the issuance of certificate of public need for proposed new hospitals, expansion, or stand-alone medical facility.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        From time to time, in the local paper, the FLS, there is an article about someone working in a restaurant or some other public facility that has been discovered to have tuberculosis… and the resulting efforts to find out who might have been exposed… etc…

        Our health dept in the county is tiny – last time I was there, there were maybe 2 or 3 people. I cannot imagine them trying to do contact tracing for dozens of people … but maybe they can.

      2. TooManyTaxes Avatar
        TooManyTaxes

        Virginia doesn’t really have a department of health. It has a department of restricting competition against incumbents while performing health related inspections and ensuring low-income individuals get health care. With Medicaid expansion, who needs to be provided state-paid health care. This is intended as a question and not a point of contention.

        I’ll admit my cynicism as I’m the guy who unsuccessfully fought Fairfax County and the Schools to get them to combine their programs for preschool kids with speech or hearing problems. Someone actually told me that combining programs would mean fewer jobs. Typical Virginia local government – kids in need and taxpayers be damned. It’s government jobs that count. Thank God for the Dillon Rule.

  7. Nancy_Naive Avatar
    Nancy_Naive

    It won’t kill you to read one article on commie radio, even if it has the highest rating on facts…

    https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/15/834497497/antibody-tests-for-coronavirus-can-miss-the-mark

    1. DeptOfTyranny Avatar
      DeptOfTyranny

      Feel free to keep yourself on lock-down as long as you feel is necessary to be safe

  8. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Tranny – it won’t be “us”. Many businesses are not going to re-open until they feel it is safe. And if they open and we have an outbreak – many people are not going to go. They may not stay home under their beds but they’re also not going to be going to restaurants if a lot of people are coming down with disease.

    The thing that is amazing is that we do have this reality of this disease – and it’s frustrating the hell out of so many people that they’re ready to throw up their hands and just go back … It’s Darwin in action! Perhaps that’s the way it has to be! 😉

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