How The Hell Did They Do That?
I went into Occupational Environmental Health and Drug Screening to get my blood drawn on Wednesday. Gotta love it! $53.00 for a bunch of tests and I was in and out of there in no more than 20 minutes. It usually takes a week or so for the results to come back as testing is done out of state. This time I was surprised, if not amazed.
I had the blood drawn at around 8:30 Wednesday morning. I got my results in the mail Saturday just after noon- three and a half days. How the hell did they do that?
I know FedEx can get the samples to Minneapolis (or wherever it is they send it) overnight. Still, I would think it would take at least another day for it to get to the lab and probably most of another day to test and process the results. That would be to Friday, I would think. Then it would take a few days for them to mail me the results. Heck, it takes 2 or 3 days to send mail locally most of the time. This took 4 days from start to finish.
HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT SO FAST???
I'm going to have to remember to call them on Monday and ask.
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Some of you might remember about 6 months ago I went in there for a blood draw and they told me, because I had insurance, they wouldn't even let me pay cash. They're over that now, having settled the insurance company problem, although they have signs up saying they don't take Blue Cross anymore.The lady who took my blood explained it to me, although I can't quite exactly remember the last half of it:
Some lady came in and paid cash for a blood draw, then filed a claim with her insurance company. This is where I'm a bit confused but apparently the insurance company insisted the office refund the lady some money- more money than the lady paid to begin with. The office said No Way. Thus began the big insurance squabble where they ended up severing their contract with Anthem/Blue Cross.
I don't think they ever accepted insurance for blood draws, but you could always file a claim with your insurance company on your own.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:46 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
The results came via USPS? Despite all of the right-wing rhetoric, they actually do a pretty damn good job!
That's how it happened. LOL.
Seems to me regular mail has been getting slower and slower, but I would have expected this to take at least 3 or 4 days one way from Minnesota.
It goes overnight to there on FedEx. I don't see how it came back so fast, unless maybe the lab sends everything back FedEx and then the place here mails it from their office in Eureka. The postmark has stamps over it so I can't tell where it was mailed from. Still, even then I would think it would take a couple days.
I'm going to try and remember to ask tomorrow.
The USPS takes 1 to 2 days to send standard mail (e.g., a regular envelope) anywhere in the continental US.
On top of that, UPS and FedEx rely heavily on the USPS for delivery. The service is called UPS SurePost/ FedEx SmartPost. The commercial delivery company drops packages off at the USPS Eureka hub and the packages are then delivered to you by the postal service.
When the USPS Eureka hub closes, a lot of commercial package deliveries will be slowed and/or the cost of commercial shipping will go up, and thus the cost of consumer goods will go up.
The simple idea behind USPS offering this service is that they'll have a delivery person on your street 6 days a week anyway. It's more efficient than UPS & FedEx driving to your street to handle 1 or 2 deliveries.
I think I just figured it out. Quite simple, really, if I'm correct. Surprised I didn't think of it earlier, although I suspected there had to be some sort of electronics involved:
The lab in Minneapolis faxed the results to the Eureka office. Eureka office puts it in the envelope I'd already addressed and mailed it to me.
That's still pretty quick, though.
Yep. Just called and asked. They fax the results to the Eureka office.
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