Glad to Have Insurance Coverage

[Don Alaska]

I never encountered Quest before. The nearest LabCorp is in the eastern outskirts of Charlottesville. When I last looked, the nearest Quest Lab was a little west of downtown Richmond but not the far western exurbs. I believe that UVA physicians use the in house lab, which has a fast turnaround. I'll often get lab results late in the evening of the day I had blood drawn at my GP's practice.

Large hospitals and systems often have their own large labs, but there are always things that local labs just don't do as they may only see one or two of the assays a year and it doesn't make sense to offer a test that you only need a couple times a year. Even the biggest hospitals don't have the reach of LabCorp that covers the entire country and beyond. mayo has its own reference lab system and offers testing nationwide as well but doesn't market to doctors and clinics as LabCorp and Quest do, At least that is the way it was when I worked. One of the smartest people I ever met in a medical field was the Director of Mayo Laboratories nationwide. He was in Minnesota and I attended a talk he gave somewhere, but I don't recall where that was. He said he read medical texts and journals 8-10 hours a day as he had to be able to speak authoritatively to every medical specialty. That was before Obamacare was passed though, so I don't know if that is still the case.