COVID-19 tests available for area high-risk patients
Tests for COVID-19 are not exactly plentiful in this area, but there appears to be enough available for now — depending on how you define “enough.”
Joy Trail, program manager for Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department in McCook (SWNPHD), said that doesn’t mean just anybody can get tested.
“‘Enough’ is kind of a subjective term,” Trail said. “We would like to be doing more testing, but they are rationing them right now for the most high-risk categories.”
That means that right now, free testing at the Nebraska Public Health lab is available for hospital inpatients; healthcare and public safety workers and first responders; and suspected infected patients from vulnerable groups, like residents and staff at nursing homes, group homes, homeless shelters and other residential facilities, and people over 65 with certain existing medical conditions.
For those who don’t have the test done at the public health lab, most insurance companies are covering the full cost of testing, Trail added.
Tests also can be sent to a commercial lab, with the patient footing the bill for that.
Depending on where the test goes, results will be back within a week and a half, although tests sent to the public health lab generally come back within a couple of days because it reads tests on the high-risk cases, Trail said.
Testing will be done at clinics in both Imperial and Wauneta.
The testing process starts when someone with symptoms—fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat—calls their provider. Trail said the patient should call first, because there’s a screening process that can be done over the phone.
“Don’t just walk into the clinic,” she said.
Those with mild symptoms are asked to stay home, she said. But if symptoms are more severe, the provider will make arrangements for a test.
Some facilities are sending test subjects to a separate entrance “to make sure no one is exposed, including health care workers and patients,” Trail said.
A nasal swab is taken, and then sent off to a lab. Results come back to the provider, in the case of a commercial lab, or to SWNPH, if the test is done either at the public health lab or the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which would then contact the provider. The provider is responsible for contacting the patient.
Those with mild symptoms are asked to stay home because of the possible week and a half time lag in getting the results back.
“A lot of people are recovering from their symptoms by that time,” Trail said.
While there has been concern nationally about a shortage of tests, in this area, “Anyone who qualifies for testing right now is able to get one,” Trail said.