Rapid COVID testing now available

Our office now offers rapid COVID testing !! These are nose swabs only, not the deep nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs. (We do those, too)

But, did you know that a rapid test is generally not used to confirm that you don't have COVID?

Here's the scoop: This rate of false positives is very low. This means that, if you have a positive result, we have confirmed that you have COVID. However the rate of false negatives is too high to rely on the result as a confirmation of NOT having COVID. Therefore, a negative rapid test is not a reason to come out of quarantine.

Negative rapid covid tests must then be confirmed by a deep NP swab sent to a local lab for analysis. This testing takes up to 72 hours for results. It's always my recommendation to self quarantine until these results are received.

I hope this helps you understand why we sometimes need to do two tests.