What You Should Know:
– Change Healthcare offers healthcare providers free access to lab orders and results for COVID-19 tests through one of the nation’s largest lab networks and adds in-home testing.
– The Change Healthcare Clinical Network expands test ordering through one of the nation’s largest lab networks and adds in-home testing.
– Providers can choose labs from one of the nation’s largest lab networks, with over 1,400 lab testing sites, of which over more than 100 are providing COVID-19 tests—including at-home and antibody tests.
Change Healthcare announced the company is providing open access to its Clinical Network lab service, where providers can quickly order COVID-19 tests and other lab tests, to help speed diagnostic results for patients nationwide. This new service helps providers identify lab options to improve access to testing and reduces the complexity of ordering lab tests by providing rapid connections to one of the nation’s largest lab testing networks.
Providers want easy access to labs for COVID-19 tests and other tests, which can be a challenge if they don’t have electronic health record (EHR) or other digital connections to labs. Even if they do have these electronic connections, access can require paying fees. This complicates a provider’s ability to identify testing sites that are convenient for the patient, submit test orders, and receive results. The burden can then fall on the patient to find the most convenient testing facility, place the lab order with a prescription, and collect their results.
Why It Matters?
This new open access to the Change Healthcare Clinical Network service helps eliminate the cost and technical complexity of ordering lab tests for COVID-19 as well as other tests. There are no fees associated with enrollment in or use of the test ordering and results reporting service, thereby eliminating financial barriers. This service improves access to testing by helping providers identify and order from the lab that’s best suited to their needs and those of their patients.
Facilitate Lab Testing Via Our Clinical Network Service
Providers log on, order the lab test that’s most appropriate and convenient for the patient, and retrieve test results online. Providers can choose labs from one of the nation’s largest lab networks, with over 1,400 lab testing sites, of which over more than 100 are providing COVID-19 tests—including at-home and antibody tests. The Change Healthcare Clinical Network includes the leading commercial labs, regional and hospital labs, and now home-testing and collection.
“Some regions are struggling to ramp up testing, with experts recently noting that only 12 states are testing at the level considered necessary to rein in the virus,” said Faisal Mushtaq, senior vice president, Clinical Network at Change Healthcare. “Providers need more and better options for COVID-19 tests and other testing to best serve their patients. By providing easy, free access to one of the nation’s largest lab networks through the Change Healthcare Clinical Network, and supplementing this with access to at-home testing resources, providers can better combat the pandemic and facilitate other healthcare services, while relieving patients of the burden of locating convenient and timely testing.”
Any healthcare provider can register now to use the Change Healthcare Clinical Network service at inspire.changehealthcare.com/COVID19Testing. Laboratories can join the Change Healthcare Clinical Laboratory Network at changehealthcare.com/solutions/clinical-network/clinical-exchange-orders-results.
