Do You Really Need To Send Your Blood Work Out To Other Labs?

[janelyb]

I mean is it necessary to pay $$$ of money to have your blood sent to a special lab? What about the tests your own doctor/ health insurence lab does isn't it accurate??

The problem I have is I want 2 of my kids tested and possibly myself too. But can't afford to pay the high price tag that goes along with sending it out to a speciality lab.

Janel

[Corkdarrr]

What specialty labs are you referring to?

[blueeyedmanda]

I had my labs drawn at my doctors office (through the hopsital I work at) We did not do the celiac panels in our facility they get sent out to a special lab which does a lot of our special tests not just celiac panels. My insurance covered it and it was very accurate.

[happygirl]

I'm not sure what specialty labs you are referring to for bloodwork. If you have the full blood panel run (ordered by your doctor, who will send it to whatever lab company they use....LabCorp, Quest, etc), that includes the tTG test (doctors don't often run this), then that is the effective bloodwork for Celiac.

Other people use other means if they don't have a willing doctor to run the blood tests, don't want it on their insurance, don't have a doctor, or question their results (and many other reasons, but that is just some).

[janelyb]

What specialty labs are you referring to?

Labs like this

Open Original Shared Link

where you pay $100 per test that you want done. My insurence doesn't cover testing from this company...

I have Blue Shield of CA HMO

[blueeyedmanda]

I think my Hospital uses Quest or AML in Virigina. We are a big facility but we send a lot of stuff out. I believed the Celiac panels go to AML.

[Nic]

My insurance company insists that we use LabCorp and if we go elsewhere, it will be at an "out of network" charge. Which means they will pay 70% of only what they feel is a appropriate charge. So while 70% sounds good, it may not be if the insurance company does not think what the lab is charging is appropriate. My ped. gastro originally sent my son's blood to LabCorp and it did show the antibodies were highly elevated. His gene test was sent to Prometheus in California. Prometheus never charged me the difference. When I went for a second opinion 3 months later, LabCorp was showing the levels to still be way too high and the new doctor felt that it should have come down some because he was strictly gluten free. So he sent the blood to a lab in I believe Boston. He also wrote a letter to my insurance company explaining that it was medically necessary to have it done at a lab that specializes in these problems so we can get an accurate look at his recovery. They paid it in full without a question.

Nicole

[happygirl]

I would think to start, the best way is definitely to go through your doctor and the lab company they use. I don't know anything about the lab you posted (so this is not necessarily directed against them), but sometimes their practices and methods are not fully in line with the rest of the medical community.

If you are looking for a diagnosis - to start with - from a doctor, I personally would request to have the full Celiac blood panel run through your doc.

Hope this helps.

[janelyb]

thanks. I just have met other online people who basically bypass their medical insurence labs and pay out of pocket to other companies who specialize in allergy testing. We did have the celiac pannel run through our GI doc and the results are questionable so we are doing them again this week. I have no idea where our local lab send the blood to, I will ask when we go this week.