Want a coronavirus test? If you have symptoms, you can order one for $135 starting Monday

Cathie Anderson
·2 min read

If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you will be able to go online and request an at-home collection kit with telehealth diagnosis from a Texas-based company starting this Monday. The company said results would be available within days.

Everlywell, a digital health company, announced Wednesday that it would have 30,000 collection kits available for sale Monday and scale up to 250,000 a week. The company, based in Austin, Texas, already offers in-home diagnostic kits for two dozen other types of conditions, including thyroid levels and Vitamin D levels, Lyme disease, cholesterol issues. and more.

The company’s founder and chief executive officer, Julia Cheek, said: “Everlywell was founded to give people affordable, convenient access to lab testing. Never has our mission been more important. Our team has been working around the clock with top scientists and laboratories in the nation to make available at the lowest price possible while covering our costs, at no profit to the company. We have also reached out to government and public health officials to explore possibilities to provide it for free.”

Consumers would pay $135 to cover the cost of shipping and processing the collection kit, company officials stated in a news release, and each individual would collect the samples themselves. The cost should be covered by flexible spending plans or health savings account, if consumers have them, the news release noted.

To access a test, consumrs can go to everlywell.com, and they will have to complete a screening diagnostic to determine their eligibility.

In order to speed development of an at-home test, Everlywell offered a $1 million development incentive to any certified laboratory that could produce a test that fulfilled requirements set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for COVID-19 diagnostics.

COVID-19 is the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. Symptoms of it include coughing, fever and shortness of breath.

“As the COVID-19 public health emergency continues to worsen with community spread across the United States, there is an unmet medical need to broaden testing for SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in a responsible manner to complement and help alleviate the potential overload on health care systems and health providers,” said Dr. Frank Ong, Everlywell’s chief medical officer and scientific officer.