Abstract
BackgroundIn a response to the pandemic, urgent care centers (UCCs) have gained a critical role as a common location for COVID-19 testing. We sought to characterize the changes in testing accessibility at UCCs between March and August 2020 on the basis of testing availability (including rapid antigen testing), wait time for test results, cost of visits, and cost of tests.MethodsData were collected using a secret shopper methodology. Researchers contacted 250 UCCs in 10 states. Investigators used a standardized script to survey centers on their COVID-19 testing availability and policies. UCCs were initially contacted in March and re-called in August. T-tests and chi-square tests were conducted to identify differences between March and August data and differences by center classification.ResultsOur results indicate that both polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to detect COVID-19 genetic material and rapid antigen COVID-19 tests have increased in availability. However, wait times for PCR test results have significantly increased to an average of 5.79 days. Additionally, a high proportion of UCCs continue to charge for tests and visits and no significant decrease was found in the proportion of UCCs that charge for COVID-19 testing from March to August. Further, no state reported a majority of UCCs with rapid testing available, indicating an overall lack of rapid testing.ConclusionsFrom March to August, COVID-19 testing availability gradually improved. However, many barriers lie in access to COVID-19 testing, including testing costs, visit costs, and overall lack of availability of rapid testing in the majority of UCCs. Despite the passage of the CARES Act, these results suggest that there is room for additional policy to improve accessibility to testing, specifically rapid testing.
Highlights
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, urgent care centers (UCCs) have become a common access point for testing,[1, 2] and over the last few months the availability and cost of COVID-19 testing at Urgent care center (UCC) haveExisting literature has explored many aspects of the COVID-19 testing landscape, including addressing rapidly increasing demand for tests, lack of testing resources, supply chain barriers, and long turnaround times.[5, 6] Several different locations for COVID-Yousman et al BMC Health Services Research (2021) 21:31819testing have been highlighted by the existing literature, including physician offices, in-patient hospital settings, emergency rooms, community health centers, walk-in retail clinics, and urgent care centers.[7]
While some literature points out the extra barriers that uninsured patients may face when seeking testing and care for COVID-19,[10, 11] there is a lack of existing literature focused characterizing the multiple cost barriers to testing for uninsured patients in light of the evolving costs of COVID-19 testing
A standardized script was used to inquire about availability of testing, estimated test result wait time, and whether testing and UCC visits were free for uninsured patients
Summary
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, urgent care centers (UCCs) have become a common access point for testing,[1, 2] and over the last few months the availability and cost of COVID-19 testing at UCCs have. 19testing have been highlighted by the existing literature, including physician offices, in-patient hospital settings, emergency rooms, community health centers, walk-in retail clinics, and urgent care centers.[7] the cost of COVID-19 testing has been reported for top US hospitals, and has further been broken down into average cost by different testing providers.[7, 8]. We examined how availability of testing, wait times for test results, and cost of testing have changed at UCCs from March 2020 to August 2020 in the United States. We sought to characterize the changes in testing accessibility at UCCs between March and August 2020 on the basis of testing availability (including rapid antigen testing), wait time for test results, cost of visits, and cost of tests
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
