By Camryn Sanchez
Twenty- one- year old college student Lauren Ashby refused to pay a fifty dollar Covid-19 testing fee in Mount Vernon this month.
In August, Ashby traveled from Syracuse to Yonkers to attend her senior year at Sarah Lawrence College, and she intended to be tested by AppleMed Urgent Care at 504 Gramatan Avenue in Mount Vernon. At the reception desk, Ashby was asked whether she had previously been tested with her health insurance, which she had. The receptionist at AppleMed then told Ashby that her insurance would only cover the cost of testing, but not the cost of an AppleMed appointment for fifty dollars.
All New York state testing facilities offer free Covid-19 tests, however private companies such as AppleMed can charge any price for testing, and they do.An employee at AppleMed stated that the price of a Covid-19 test is $185, which is a price set by their testing laboratory. “Some insurance says they don’t cover [Covid-19 tests], because they cover only for the first time, but for the second time they don’t cover.”
Contrary to that statement, Ashby was able to get a free Covid-19 test the same day -with the same insurance- at a different private urgent care facility in Mount Vernon called American Family Care (AFC). Her negative test results from AFC arrived within two days, the same window of time AppleMed offers to their Covid-19 testing clients.
AFC confirmed that they do not charge patients for Covid-19 tests, whether or not they have health insurance or have been previously tested.
College students like Ashby have returned to their university towns for the fall semester, and in many cases come into contact with people in other towns, counties, and even states.
At Sarah Lawrence College for example, a high percentage of students come from California. When traveling students are not tested, contact tracing cases of Covid-19 is almost impossible.
“Testing is a baseline that you can use to gauge how much community spread of the disease there has been,” says Dr. Peter Mercurio, President of Westchester Health, and member of Northwell Health Physician Partners. “The more testing you do the easier it is to get a handle on how much disease is prevalent in your community, how much tracking you have to do, and… you get a better sense of what you can or can’t do in the business community.”
Dr. Mercurio is concerned that schools reopening will create a spike in Covid-19 cases, especially at colleges, “Test the teachers, the staff, and the students, and be prepared to understand that you’re going to get some positives somewhere down the line, because you’re testing more frequently. You’re prepared to then track down those people, who they’ve been exposed to, and if necessary to shut down that school.”
Although Ashby refused to be tested at AppleMed, and was able to locate a free testing site, she is concerned that other people unaware of free facilities may endanger their community by avoiding testing altogether.
“You don’t want price to be a barrier to people getting tested.” says Ashby, “It’s not really fair that some places are trying to charge for Covid tests when that’s not common procedure, because people may not know that it’s not common procedure. It shouldn’t be something that you have to pay for in the middle of a pandemic to make sure that everyone is healthy.”
Camryn Sanchez can be reached at camryngsanchez@gmail.com.
