Bruce Japsen Senior Contributor Mar 26, 2020,08:34am
EDT
UnitedHealth Group
will roll out a[+]
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP
AND OPTUM
UnitedHealth Group will roll out a patient-administered test for the
Coronavirus strain COVID-19 to 46,000 of its OptumCare physicians.
The nation’s largest health insurer, which
owns the giant Optum health services company, has under its umbrella 46,000
OptumCare physicians who can provide a patient-administered test
process UnitedHealth executives say is as effective as
the current clinician-administered test process.
“We expect them, and many others, to begin to
adopt this new testing process,” a UnitedHealth spokesman said Thursday morning
of the 46,000 OptumCare doctors.
A study funded by UnitedHealth Group
earlier this week shows people can self-administer a diagnostic test with a
much smaller swab, a process that should save potentially thousands of
clinicians from being exposed to the virus while at the same time making the
testing simpler.
Researchers say such a self-administered
process eliminates the need for the healthcare worker to be “up close to the
patient” with patient protective equipment when the patient can merely swab
their own nostril and had the test to the medical care provider.
The test is already being used in Seattle
where doctors at an Optum-affiliated clinic have been using the
self-administered method and led a study UnitedHealth Group released Wednesday.
“We know that broad, rapid and accurate
testing is essential to addressing the COVID-19 crisis, yet the current
clinician-administered process significantly limits testing capacity, puts
frontline health care workers at risk of COVID-19 exposure, and is unpleasant
for patients,” Dr. Yuan-Po Tu, an infectious disease expert at The Everett
Clinic and the study’s lead author said. Everett Clinic is a part of OptumCare,
the medical care provider business of UnitedHealth.
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