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Affordable Blood Work In Four Hours Coming To Pharmacies
kkleiner writes "With the cost of healthcare services increasing, it's welcome news that a recent deal between Walgreens and Theranos will bring rapid, accurate, low-cost blood testing to the local pharmacy. A pinprick of blood from a finger is enough to run any number of a la carte diagnostic tests with results in four hours or less. The automation of blood testing in one convenient machine may mean that the demand for clinical technicians may decline, but the benefits of making blood analysis more accessible to everyone is enormous."
I'm always a bit awed at the speed of the blood iron/hemoglobin pinprick test when I give blood. 15 seconds from pinprick to result. I guess that's the exception and not the rule where blood testing is concerned (something tells me the HIV/Hepatitis tests they run aren't nearly that fast), but it's still a neat little trick to marvel at.
Of course, that stupid little spring loaded thing freaks me out more than the 16 gauge IV they use for the actual donation, but that's probably a different conversation...... thank god I'm not diabetic.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A pinprick of blood from a finger
Why does the blood always have to come from a finger? That's where all the nerves are. Why can't you get the drop of blood from your elbow or some other place?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
that the winner of the international science fair came up with...detected Lung, Pancreatic and one other type of cancer using a carbon nanotube and a handful of parts he picked up at Home Depot. Cost of the test? About $0.04 and highly accurate.
What will it cost after it's commercialized? We'll see.
If you need a blood test the doctor/hospital will likely take the blood perform test and charge accordingly leaving the patient out of the loop entirely. If this test does actually force a lower reimbursement rate, they will specify checking for conditions not covered by the test so a more expensive one has to be done
once your friendly insurance company gets ahold of it, it'll cost $650. Affordable, by their standards.
I'm sure it depends on the test, but my guess is pretty accurate. I was going to throw in some citations with some actual figures, but without specific tests / brand names, all I can tell you is that tests based on microfluidics are being billed as "fast and accurate."
There are far easier--and less obvious--ways of getting someone's DNA.
Wow, thanks so much for this insightful and completely topical post!
I think I'd like to see this in my doctors office. They could employ someone to take care of that, make blood work more quick for diagnostics, and patients wouldn't have to go to yet somewhere else for blood work, then everyone waits for results. I could be wrong, but it feels like this is something a doctors office might be more well invested in for the patient. And if the cost is low enough, then perhaps it's a service they add on regularly so as to insure there's not something cropping up that goes undiagnosed between visits...since we all know that particularly men don't want to go to the doctor unless something is really wrong.
But, it goes back to doctors being more invested in patients and their positive health and less about getting as many people through the door as possible in a day. However, that's probably a whole different discussion.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
It was your choice to sign up for a plan with a $6000 deductible, and I'd imagine it's quite a bit less expensive than your old plan. If not, pony up some details. We don't need your name and Social Security number to verify what you're paying for a plan under the new healthcare exchanges.
Use this chart to quickly interpret blood test results:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Reference_ranges_for_blood_tests_-_by_mass.svg
(shamelessly stolen from this post a few months back)
Someone asked, here's the answer: a whole lot better than the labwork you get now. Example: HDL tests are allowed to have a 30% margin of error. Theranos' tests are accurate to within 10%.
This will save money, and improve healthcare outcomes. No upside to waiting 3 days for test results. Next stop - subdermal monitors!
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
Well, the Affordable Healthcare Act insurance plans aren't effective until Jan 1, 2014. And there's nothing in the AHA that prevents a policy from having a cheap co-pay. You're either a troll or you blame the AHA for your insurance company using the AHA as an excuse to put the screws to you.
As someone who frequently faints or comes extremely close while having blood drawn, I am extremely excited about this tech. I hate getting blood drawn so much that I have a tendency to avoid scheduling routine physicals, which I know is not smart since yearly physicals are so crucial to spotting trouble before things get too bad. I don't just hate passing out (or nearly), but I hate needles in general, so having that needle stuck in my arm for the duration of the draw (or the frequent misses and retries) along with the whole losing consciousness is torture for me. Finger-prick was never a problem for me, though. I imagine I'm not alone, so if this means more people doing some preventative maintenance, then it likely also means less emergency room visits and major procedures resulting from ignored or uncaught conditions that would have otherwise been easily treated.
I just hope that my insurance will accept this method. I just got a letter in the mail from them the other day reminding me that they do not work with all labs.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
I know how to interpret my LDL and HDL levels. Most people understand what it means to be "positive" for HIV or Hepatitis. The last blood panel I had included a whole column of "acceptable" ranges. I think the idea here is either that your doctor orders the blood panel and gets you the results that day (rather than a week later) or that you take the test and then say, "Oop. Time to see the doctor." Or it's for chronic conditions (like high cholesterol) where self-monitoring is entirely possible.
Spam is certainly a form of "information", but it's nearly universally unwanted. Which sums up your bullshit neatly.
My choice? Let them eat cake, I guess.
My premiums went up another $250/month. Deductible went from $500 to $6000, with 65% coinsurance to $9000. No prescription drug coverage. A lot of people reading this got the same news this year. Or will.
My son's birth two years ago cost me $500. Baby #2 is due this year and it's going to cost me $9000.
:wq
So - don't forget to check the box at the bottom of the form saying that you agree to their privacy policy. (whereby, your blood will give them a DNA sequence that they can sell as marketing information - which funds the tests. And the CEO's retirement plan).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If not, pony up some details.
Stories abound of people who have lost under the ACA, some of whom have lost big. You don't need some random /. member to tell you his story when similar stories have aired on every major news network for the last few weeks. Here's one from PBS, a relatively unbiased source that few would claim was rooting for the failure of the ACA.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What you are saying doesn't make sense to me, for two reasons:
1. Under my obamacare compliant plan, on lab services besides "major imaging", the deductible is waived, and I only pay the coinsurance cost share percentage.
2. With a 6k deductible, your cost share might be 40%, so you would need to be using 15k of lab services. If that is the case, why aren't you signed up for the gold plan? Get the 2k deductible, and you will probably only need to pay 20%, like me, and the difference easily pays for the gold plan.
What state do you live in? I am in WA, and everything is running smoothly here. I had a lot of help finding the right plan.
What test are you taking?
http://www.theranos.com/test-menu?ref=our_solution
And the worms ate into his brain.
Find a lab that will let you lay down while they do the draw. You faint during the draw because of a drop in blood pressure, lying down will ensure that more blood remains in the brain when this happens, which will prevent (or at least postpone) fainting. Get a few successful draws under your belt and you might find that you don't have to keep laying down, since your body will have moved past the negative association.
YMMV, but it worked for me, I used to have the exact same problem and managed to conquer it to the point of becoming a regular blood donor. I could tell you some real good stories about passing out in hospitals though. :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I doubt it. Sounds like a lie, or some other change happened your not talking about.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If tests are easier to get and use, I can see going in fairly often just to make sure a diet is working or that an exercise regimen is actually taking care of stuff. Plus, it might be useful checking if one has cold or flu, and treating it accordingly.
It's about getting everyone insured. Yes some people are paying more.
OTOH, under her old plan, if somethign difficult came up, they could(and probably would) cut her plan. Now they can't do that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I used to look after the local Lab Management System for a medical lab here in New Zealand.
Here blood tests are pretty much free when ordered by a doctor - IIRC the ministry of health gives the tester around $5 for the simple tests... if you walked off the street they might charge you $US15 for doing the paperwork.
The results were ready in a few hours, and then an EDI-style clearing house is used to deliver the results back into the doctor's patient management system, so a four hour turn-around was not unheard of (as long as the sample was taken at the lab and not the doctor's surgery).
Apparently you had Sarah Palin as a reading comprehension teacher.
He is comparing the American health care system with the European health care system.
Which is far superior by every measure.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
" "positive" for HIV or Hepatitis"
so what does that mean?
if you answer was anything other than ' take a second test' you fail.
And of course a significant portion of people will never report or followup when they have an STD. They will infect others, and they will apply 'pop culture' 'treatments' to serious diseases.
I look forward to people beating themselves with bushes to cure aids, and using prayer to protect others from getting infected~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Now they can't do that.
Stop boiling this issue down to talking points, it does both sides a disservice. In fact, a talking point ("If you like your health insurance you can keep it.") is precisely the reason why our fearless leader finds himself with a 39% approval rating.
There were a multitude of ways to get everybody insured that didn't require a 2,000 page Rube Goldberg piece of legislation. The goal of universal coverage is laudable. The ACA is anything but, and, incidentally, will still leave millions of people without insurance. For 2,000 pages and trillions of dollars I really had hoped for more than just nibbling around the edge of the problem.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If not, pony up some details.
Stories abound of people who have lost under the ACA, some of whom have lost big. You don't need some random /. member to tell you his story when similar stories have aired on every major news network for the last few weeks. Here's one from PBS, a relatively unbiased source that few would claim was rooting for the failure of the ACA.
And there are plenty MORE stories about people getting screwed by insurance companies BEFORE the ACA. Even with the ACA, it's still the insurance companies screwing you.
Okay, /. loves car analogies, so here's one. Let's say in the near future the technology for self-driving cars is well enough refined for the mass market. Now let's say failures in the automatic driving system will cause 1,000 deaths per year from traffic accidents, but the automatic driving system will save 10,000 deaths per year. Should we implement the system in order to save a net of 9,000 deaths per year, or should we deny it because it'll cause 1,000 deaths per year?
As someone else living in Europe that is paying through taxes for this "doesn't cost a dime" service of yours, can I just say... you're welcome.
Isn't it lovely living in a civilized place?
If your plan was compliant with the AHA, which it sounds like it was, then your insurance company is absolutely still allowed to offer that plan. The fact that your insurance company decided to drop that that plan and only offer you a worse one, which is something they COULD HAVE DONE AT ANY TIME ANYWAY, is just down to your insurance company being douches, not a fault of the AHA or Obama. I'm willing to bet that if you shopped around (power of the marketplace, gee what an interesting concept) you'd find someone else offering something similar or better to your old plan at similar or better pricing.
My purely random anecdotal story is that, with the advent of the AHA, my employer offered plans went from a single plan that gave me no choices or options, to the choice of three plans. The first was almost identical in price to the old plan I had, $1,000 deductible, $30 co-pay, same prescription drug coverage both on 30 and 90 day amounts, and with the exception that now it covered routine lab work (out of pocket, no coverage before), and several preventive care options that weren't available previously. But even better were the two other options. For about 20% more I could drop to a $750 deductible, with $25 co-pay and similar reduction in drug costs, or for 40% more than my original I could drop to $500 deduc, $20 co-pay, and even lower drug costs.
Choice is a wonderful thing.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
I reread that and it sounded like I was implying I am a Medical Doctor. I am not. I used to run some very in depth analysis with multi zone/state/country hospitals.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But obviously, YOU aren't a trolling douche.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Nope. Insurance companies have an interest in increasing medical costs.
Under Obamacare health insurance companies are allowed a maximum of 20% of the cost of medical care. The only way health insurance companies can increase their profits is by increasing medical care costs.
And there are plenty MORE stories about people getting screwed by insurance companies BEFORE the ACA. Even with the ACA, it's still the insurance companies screwing you.
Insurance companies were the problem, so we "fix" it by mandating that everybody do business with them? WTF?!
You just don't get it.... The biggest problem with our healthcare system is the cost, and the ACA did nothing whatsoever to address that. What good is universal coverage (which, FYI, the ACA doesn't provide) when healthcare costs are slowly bankrupting us? 21% of GDP and rising. There are a variety of reasons for this, few that can be boiled down to simple talking points, and the ACA did nothing to address them. Healthcare costs (by extension, health insurance costs) continue their endless upward march, consuming an ever larger slice of the national pie, while our body politic squabbles about stupid shit like mandatory contraceptive coverage, a non-issue (generic birth control pills: $30/mo, box of 12 condoms: $8.99 at the grocery store) except for those most partisan of asshats on both sides of the aisle.
Read this article, How American Health Care Killed My Father. It's old, but the trends that he talks about were not addressed by the ACA. These problems will remain regardless of the eventual success or failure of the ACA, and sooner or later they'll have to be addressed.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
According to Theranos' web site the Walgreens in downtown Palo Alto has one. Looking at their price list, the tests are very affordable for people without insurance
Apparently you had Sarah Palin as a reading comprehension teacher.
He is comparing the American health care system with the European health care system.
Which is far superior by every measure.
"European" != a country, numbnuts.
Since it obviously went over your head, the Sarah Palin crack is in reference to a rumor that, during the 2008 campaign, she got into an argument with a staffer about whether Africa is a country or a continent (apparently Mrs. Palin believed the latter).
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Choice is a wonderful thing.
Too bad the ACA took a lot of it away, by telling people what kind of coverages they must have, because clearly 55 year old menopausal women need maternity coverage. Mandated coverages are the biggest thing driving the sticker shock that a lot of people are seeing right now, and it's only going to get worse.
Also nice that they outlawed a lot of traditional actuarial processes, like charging women more than men (hint: women use more healthcare, though I could get behind this if we apply the same concept to auto insurance), only allowing them to charge the elderly 3X more than the young even though they use many times that in coverage (and usually have more money than the young to foot the bills with....) and so on.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The government requires the accuracy of medical tests to be determined before the tests are used on patients.
I live in Canada and even though I don't have to pay for blood tests I still have to leave my warm igloo, hook up my dogs and then mush down to the trading post to get my blood drawn.
If your doctor has requested you take a blood test, you can have that blood test done at any facility of your choice. I have personally transferred my doctor's blood tests to other facilities.
In California, patients are prohibited from obtaining blood tests without a doctor's request. And, the test results must be sent only to the doctor without providing the patient with a copy.
Comprehensive metabolic panels (CMPs) and CBCs are the bread and butter of companies like Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp. Might be a good time not to own any of their stock...or at least, not once a working version of this comes out.
It's about getting everyone insured.
Nope. Some people are finding Obamacare is cancelling their insurance while their Obamacare replacement insurance is unaffordable and they make too much for a subsidy.
So far, more people have had their insurance cancelled than the number of people who have been able to obtain a policy through the government website.
In California, the insurance commissioner has said that none of the existing health insurance plans are compliant with the ACA and all must be cancelled.
Not, the person you responded to didn't even say they were in the US. Get over yourselves.
Signed, someone in a country with real healthcare.
...
The fact that your insurance company decided to drop that that plan and only offer you a worse one, which is something they COULD HAVE DONE AT ANY TIME ANYWAY, is just down to your insurance company being douches, not a fault of the AHA or Obama.
And yet it wasn't canceled until now. Clearly a conspiracy against Obama, which is why he suddenly said he was issuing 1 year waivers for insurance plans, despite that never being in the "Affordable" Care Act.
We really need a sign near the comments that reads: "don't feed the trolls".
Tomorrow is another day...
I know a lot of people who buy diagnostic tests on their genome and their blood.
The problem is that you don't know what the risks "mean".
Knowledge is not always wisdom.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It means free-to-use, pedant. Same as your public library.
You could always move to an uncivilized place like the United States, and pay 3x as much for worse care AND deal with insurance company roadblocks to get it.
"European" != a country
So? European health care has a median among countries, and it's still valid to compare that median to American health care.
Apparently you had Sarah Palin as a reading comprehension teacher.
He is comparing the American health care system with the European health care system.
Which is far superior by every measure.
Erm, there is not European health care system. There isn't even an EU health care system.
There are health care systems in countries in Europe, most of which are superior to the US. The US lingers at the bottom of developed countries when it comes to health care, which is surprising as the US tends to spend more on health care than many European nations.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The whole point of insurance is that costs are shared among people with equal risks OVER TIME.
No, the point of insurance is to trade risk for cost in a deal between the insurer and the insured. The existence of risk pools makes this practical on a large scale, since the costs average out, but it's not really a necessary component. You can be insured for a potential one-off event that no one else will ever experience.
The correct way for insurance to operate is that you pay a higher premium while your risk is high, and a lower premium while your risk is low. Averaging out the high-risk and low-risk times is not the function of insurance.
An "efficiency" in an insurance product is usually an absurdity. The ideally "efficient" insurance product is no insurance at all!
Nonsense. You're assuming perfect knowledge of the future. Insurance operates in the real world, where the future is uncertain. If you actually knew what the outcome would be then you wouldn't need insurance, but all you actually know is how likely each outcome is projected to be. Efficient insurance means not paying more than you have to in premiums for coverage against a particular outcome. Since underestimating the risk means the insurance company eventually goes out of business, and overestimating it means you pay too much in premiums, the efficient price is the one where the risk is accurately assessed and there is sufficient competition to keep the insurance company's margins in check.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Wow, Vitamin D 25-OH for only $20.35 according to their page. that +$200.00 less than LabCorp charges. It's nice to see Silicon Valley expanding its menu.
It is $510 to get basic blood work here. (Just had it done a month ago). We don't have a wallgreens, but still .... If this is cheaper ....
Insurance companies want to lower their medical reimbursements to you; they have no vested interest in lowering medical costs overall. Thus they are happy to offer a high-deductible plan, limit you to doctors and hospitals that will give them favorable prices, and refuse to cover things that, although your doctor ordered them as essential to your proper care, would impact the insurance company's bottom line.
Here's an interesting short article on how mixing private insurers into Medicare actually multiplied the overhead costs by a factor of six:
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/february/setting-the-record-straight-on-medicare%E2%80%99s-overhead-costs
Not to those that actually paid for it, duh.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
Yeah, but that's mostly a bunch of lies Europeans and self-loathing Americans tell each other. Our health care system only looks bad in terms of cost, the infant mortality numbers are outright fabrications and longevity is heavily cultural (we're fat).
Cost and availability you can certainly ding us for, but as an upper middle class American the health care available to be is as good or better than pretty much any European outside of the super wealthy.
Shrug. We have better care. If you get cancer your best bet is to get treatment in the US. Oh, sure, it costs a lot but pretending you get worse care here is a lie _if_ you have decent insurance.
When I think of Walgreens, I instantly think of airtight, impervious security and attentive employees obsessed with getting detailed work dead solid perfect the first time, every time.
Meanwhile, on planet Earth...
This info (I mean the 70% of it that is kept with the correct customer) will be hacked within two months. And buried deep within the 1-point EULA you have to agree to is permission to share all this information with every health insurer - especially your current one. In fact, the order will be: first your rates go through the roof, *then* word is passed along to you by the snail-est of mail that they found something in your tests.
What I posted is true.
:wq
"With the cost of healthcare services increasing"
Healthcare costs aren't going up, what is going on is price gouging by the insurance companies.
The actual metric is that 80% of premiums must go to medical care. So yes, they can spend more (in asbolute $) on medical care and subsequently keep more (in absolute $) as overhead/profit, but in order for that to work out, they have to also charge higher premiums since that is the only income in the equation. This puts them at a disadvantage in the marketplace.
Why would that be a "rumor?" Was there also a "rumor" that Hillary Clinton believed the sky was blue?
Wait, so spreading the costs over everyone in a single payer system is "eeebil commie socialism," but when we do it to protect corporate profits, that's A-OK?
No.
Slashdot is filled with extremist Democrat socialist leaning voters and has forced this tyrannical monstrosity upon the people of the US, not single handedly of course, but you all did your part like good little drones and you all know it.
Slashdot has quite a variety of political stances and belief systems, and some who don't like being affiliated with any of them.
We also have at least a small share of idiots, as you have displayed.
Cost and availability you can certainly ding us for, but as an upper middle class American the health care available to be is as good or better than pretty much any European outside of the super wealthy.
First off, you'll find the European systems to be as good, if not better. They wont subject you to as many X-Rays and may suggest going on a diet above giving you a motorised scooter and vitamin injections but this does not make them worse.
Secondly, that's what makes the US health care system so terrible.
Unless you have money, it's denied to you. Most middle class Americans get their health care via their employer (otherwise it's too expensive) and that pretty much makes you indentured to your employer.
As a "regular Joe" I'd rather be under the UK system than the US system.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
the US tends to spend more on health care than many European nations.
No we don't. We spend more than anybody! Period. In the whole world.
Stupid, aren't we?
Free Martian Whores!