I recently decided to get a COVID-19 antibody test (COVID-19 Immune Response test). Most…read moreimportantly, I wanted a COVID-19 antibody test with extremely high accuracy and high specificity, and thus, I chose Quest Diagnositics b/c they offer the Abbott IGG COVID-19 antibody test, which, at this point in time, is the most accurate and specific antibody test available.
So, I went online to the Quest Direct/My Quest (MyQuest) website, and ordered and prepaid the test, with an appointment to visit this Quest clinic for the test later on the same day. BTW, Quest's server has major software problems in the new account setup process, in the step where you enter a password, and it took me 3 hours to finally get it to accept a password -- major software programming errors!
I arrived at the clinic 11 minutes early for my appointment, had no problems checking in using the automated check-in device at the front desk, and was taken into the back to one of the blood collection rooms by a friendly and competent technician 6 minutes later, still several minutes prior to my actual appointment time. So far so good!
I was seated at a blood collection chair, and the tech told me that she would be able to to label the blood vial and draw a blood sample from my arm within a few seconds. Well, the few seconds turned into a couple of minutes, because the Quest patient information computer system kept crashing on her after she'd brought up my account (she and other techs later advised me that this happens on about 50% of client visits, and results in massive delays in collecting samples each day, and that this problem with the computer system crashing has been going on for many months, and that Quest is unable to fix the problem). This was kinda sad, as well as annoying.
Then, it got even weirder. The tech asked me to spell out my full name for her, and to also tell her verbally my date of birth and some other rather private identifying information. I was alarmed, b/c the MyQuest website, and also the HIPAA-required patient privacy information signs in the lobby and on the wall of the collection room, had claimed that in order to ensure maximum patiend privacy and confidentiality, I would NEVER be asked to share any such information verbally with any techs!
So, I asked the tech why she needed this information, since all of it was already stored in the Quest computer system in my account. With tears of sheer frustration in her eyes, she explained that she needed my full name and DOB to be able to write it on the blood collection tube, and she agreed that while it was true that their computer system held this info in my account, the computer system had already crashed and kicked her out of my account 7 times in the past six minutes, and so she needed me to verbally give her the private identifying information so that she could write it on the tube. I then reluctantly shared the private information with her.
BTW, over the next few minutes, I heard techs in two other nearby collection rooms asking their patients for the same info, and heard them explaining about the Quest computer system problems to their patients as well. They all sounded extremely frustrated.
In short order, I was able to leave, but not without first hearing yet another Quest tech apologizing to her patient about the same computer problem. Very sad!
The next morning, at 1:08 AM (I get up at 1 AM to start my day each day...), I received an email from Quest Direct telling me that my test results were now available on their website. I clicked on the link in the email, logged into my Quest Direct/MyQuest website, and found that the results were NOT available. Worse, the button on the Results page called something like "Request missing results" would not work for me because the COVID-19 Immune Response test is considered to be a special test, and the page would therefore not allow me to submit a request.
I then tried using the "Contact Quest about Problems" page/form on their website, but it would not allow me to submit my Tech Support request due to website software problems: I then tried submiting the report using three other browsers, in case the problem was due to browser issues, but with zero success.
I finally found an email address for Customer Service, and sent an email asking for the lost results to be posted to my account. I NEVER got a reply to my email, but results suddenly appeared on my Results page 6 days later. By that time, I already had a PDF file on hand from Quest with my results, b/c I had taken 57 minutes out of my life a couple of days earlier to call Quest's Client Service phone line, put up with a 35+ minute wait in a phone queue, and then finally spoke with a customer service rep who, after I had proven my identity, had agreed to email me the results in a PDF file. Sadly, it had cost me an hour of my time!
Bottom line: Quest badly needs to fire their CTO (Chief Technology Officer) and get a competent IS/IT team in place!