Why is the QRMDs solution best for me?
On-site physician assisted testing via telemedicine platform that is fast and efficient at $0 dollar out of pocket cost with the best quality, accurate RT-PCR Covid test available. Our test in partnership with Guardant, Telomeres Lab and Seaport Diagnostics, ensures we bring the best quality accurate test to identify the Covid 19 virus. Almost all competing tests done today are “pooled” (grouped together) reducing test sensitivity resulting in higher instances of false negatives, false positives when there are low viral loads.
The QRMDs accuracy provides you greater assurance that you can take comfort in receiving a negative result or positive result and also allows you to be proactive at an earlier stage if Covid-19 is detected, even if symptoms have not developed.
With a majority of people vaccinated, why do I need to test?
The vaccines are working well. Very well and research supports the notion that vaccinated people do not suffer serious adverse reactions to infection from the virus prior to the Delta variant. This has changed somewhat and now we are seeing
“breakthrough infections” occurring; this is where a vaccinated patient becomes infected with the virus. However the vaccinations do NOT prevent the infection, and likely those infected are most likely asymptomatic. Therefore unless your entire population in your group is vaccinated, including their families, robust testing and surveillance is the best way to stop proliferation of the infection in your group.
Are all the costs of the testing covered?
All of the direct costs of the testing program are covered by a Federal Grant in the CARES Act or private/commercial insurance. The way the program works is that we collect your insurance information and submit that to your insurance company. In turn your insurance company submits their bills to the Federal Grant subsidy and the charges are settled. As such as long as we can document ‘medical necessity’ there are no charges to you whatsoever for any of the testing or physician services associated with the test(s).
As such there are currently NO out of pocket charges that are allowed per the act to be charged.
QRMDs will establish medical necessity for your testing program for each participant tested. Once that is established, all of your employees, students or group members testing costs and physician services will be covered.
You are not financially responsible for any other costs. This is valid for both all insureds and non insured group members.
If your group members are not qualified as being medically necessary, you will be notified in advance and asked if you would like to pay for the cost of the testing or test. You will not incur any surprise charges with regard to the program.
Providing that medical necessity is documented, the cost of all tests are reimbursed by insurance and the Federal Government. Medical necessity must be established beforehand at least 2 days prior to taking the test.
How do we establish medical necessity to ensure there are no charges?
Medical Necessity is documented in our system 3 times by at least two separate medical professionals.
First, with the online medical necessity questions you NEED to answer each week at least one day before you take a test. Second, during a brief review of your answers and a televisit with one of our qualified medical professionals while taking the test. Third, our medical director will review all the encounters, notes, answers and again sign off on your interaction and testing.
While not foolproof, we believe this is the most efficient way to ensure that the costs of the testing are covered under the CARES Act and are documented as being medically necessary.
How does this test identify if I have Covid-19?
The test detects the expression of three genes specific to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the N, and RNase P genes. Viral RNA is extracted from the patient’s sample and the presence of gene sequences is assessed. If the presence of 2 or 3 of these gene transcripts is confirmed, the test is considered POSITIVE. This test will not indicate immunity or detect antibodies.
Are medical professionals involved in the process?
QRMDs has a team of physicians who will review your order and results. Our medical professional team is on standby throughout the testing process and, if you test positive, you will receive a notification to discuss your results and treatment options online through the QRMDs website.
What does the CDC say about testing now for schools? (July 9th, 2021)
In a recent publication the CDC recommends amongst other measures, “Use of a frequent SARS-CoV-2 screening testing program for students, teachers, and staff ” for schools with K-12 students. That article can be seen here.
Yes. While the vaccine may prevent you from getting sick, it will not prevent you from contracting the virus. You will not likely develop symptoms, but can still be a carrier. Testing should be done to see if you have the virus and are unintentionally capable of asymptomatically spreading it. That is why, until more is understood about how well the vaccine works, continuing with precautions such as mask-wearing and physical distancing will be important. (Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., senior director of infection prevention, and Gabor Kelen, M.D., director of Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response).
Testing will enable you to identify whether you are still carrying the virus.
How often can I test and have insurance cover the costs?
Currently, as of August 2021, as long as it is determined that the testing is medically necessary to test your group members (employees, students etc.) the costs are covered by insurance benefits reimbursed under the CARES Act. This includes testing of asymptotic individuals.
The threshold to qualify for the costs to be covered under the CARES Act and to establish medical necessity is currently is very low. This could and likely will change over time. As this develops and matures your account executive will work with you to assist you in identifying the accurate and correct testing days and frequency.
How Often do you reccomend testing to keep my group safe?
Historically, if surveillance testing is performed twice a week, this has demonstrated to be the best way to prevent infection outbreaks within a community or group of people.
The surveillance testing concept is to identify the infected within the group, before they can pass the infection to other members of the group. By testing twice a week, you are better able to catch those individuals that are infected with the virus before they can pass the infection to the group. Thus preventing an outbreak within the group. This holds true for vaccinated and unvaccinated alike as unvaccinated individuals can still carry the virus.
What are the financial obligations on our part of having our group tested?
There are NO co pay obligations, or other payments whatsoever to any group members who are testing. Nor is there a negative impact on their benefits packages or costs typically to most plans. Each plan is different and has separate structures. We encourage you to find out more about how we can assist your group, school or business.
The CARES act has established monies to support these efforts
Why is the QRMDs solution best for me?
On-site physician assisted testing via telemedicine platform that is fast and efficient at $0 dollar out of pocket cost. We can process your group through the testing process faster and more efficiently; averaging between 40-55 patients per queue per hour. We can support up to 10 or more simultaneous queues.
Almost all competing tests done today are “pooled” (grouped together) and rely on a light signature that is imprecise, thus reducing test sensitivity resulting in higher instances of false negatives, false positive and indeterminate results when there are low viral loads.
The QRMDs accuracy provides you greater assurance that you can take comfort in receiving a negative result or positive result and also allows you to be proactive at an earlier stage if Covid-19 is detected, even if symptoms have not developed.
I’m vaccinated, why do I still have to test?
Yes. While the vaccine may prevent you from getting sick, it will not prevent you from contracting the virus. You will not likely develop symptoms, but can still be a carrier. Testing should be done to see if you have the virus and are unintentionally capable of asymptomatically spreading it. That is why, until more is understood about how well the vaccine works, continuing with precautions such as mask-wearing and physical distancing will be important. (Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., senior director of infection prevention, and Gabor Kelen, M.D., director of Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response).
Testing will enable you to identify whether you are still carrying the virus.
What does the CDC say about testing now for schools? (July 9th, 2021)
in a recent publication the CDC recommends amongst other measures, “Use of a frequent SARS-CoV-2 screening testing program for students, teachers, and staff ” for schools with K-12 students. That article can be seen here
Does insurance cover costs? Is the School or myself obligated to pay anything?
QRMDs will establish medical necessity for your Company testing program. Once that is established, then all of your employees, students or group members testing costs and physician services will be covered.
Your Company is not financially responsible for any other costs. This is valid for both all insureds and non insured group members.
If your group members are not qualified as being medically necessary, you will be notified in advance and asked if you would like to pay for the cost of the testing or test. You will not incur any surprise charges with regard to the program
Providing medical necessity the cost of all tests are reimbursed by insurance and the Federal Government. Medical necessity must be established by completing our online medical necessity questionnaire beforehand at least one day prior to taking your test.
How does this test identify if I have Covid-19?
The test detects the expression of three genes specific to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the N, and RNase P genes. Viral RNA is extracted from the patient’s sample and the presence of gene sequences is assessed. If the presence of 2 or 3 of these gene transcripts is confirmed, the test is considered POSITIVE. This test will not indicate immunity or detect antibodies.
Are medical professionals involved in the process?
QRMDs has a team of physicians who will review your order and results. Our medical professional team is on standby throughout the testing process and, if you test positive, you will receive a notification to discuss your results and treatment options online through the QRMDs website.
How often can I test and have insurance cover the costs?
Currently, as of February ’21, as long as it is determined that the testing is medically necessary to test your group members (employees, students etc.) the costs are covered by insurance benefits.
The bar for medical necessity currently is very low. This could and likely will change over time. As this develops and matures your account executive will work with you to assist you in identifying the accurate and correct testing days and frequency.
How Often do you reccomend testing to keep my group safe?
This depends upon the current infection rate within your area(s) and other factors such as how often your group interacts with others.
Generally the idea is to catch an infection in one or more group members prior to them infecting the rest of the general population of your group to prevent an outbreak within your facility or location.
To best serve this we reccomend you test twice a week on Monday/Tuesday and again on Thursday or Friday. in this way the tests you run on Thursday will report results on Saturday which gives you the opportunity to keep those infected in your group from returning on Monday. Subsequently you can follow up with testing on Monday or Tuesday, to be sure you catch the infected at the earliest possible time.
Does sending the bills to my insurance company impact my insurance rates or are there hidden costs?
There are NO co pay obligations, or other payments whatsoever to any group members who are testing. Per the CARES act, as long as there is medical necessity established for testing, there should be no negative impact on your rates or policies. President Biden reinforced this. The CARES act has established monies to support these efforts. Insurance companies are barred from charging co pays on Covid 19 testing. As well you will never get a bill from us.
All samples are individually sequenced and lab results are delivered 98% of the time the next day.
There are certain insurance companies that in defiance of the CARES act and specific Government guidelines, have opted to send what looks like a bill to patients but is really an “explanation of benefits” (“EOB”). Rest assured, if you answered the medical necessity questions at least a day before your test, and we took your test, you will NEVER be responsible for any monies to QRMDs or our parent company SOS Environmental Health LLC. If you receive a notification such as this, please either fax a copy or email us a copy. Our fax number is 805 765-8588 and our email is support@qrmds.com
We cannot prevent your insurance company from doing this, but we will work with them and get this removed from your record as being responsible.
I got a check from my insurance company?
As the above question addressed, some insurance companies have not complied with guidelines in the CARES Act. You may in some rare cases receive an ‘explanation of benefits’ (“EOB”) and a check or remittance in your name.
This is not your money. IF you do receive such a check, please endorse the back of the check “payable to SOS Environmental Health LLC” and mail it to:
SOS Environmental Health LLC
Dept. LA 25284 Pasadena, CA 91185
When we receive the checks we will contact your insurance company and work with them to correct your EOB and patient obligation reduced to $0, providing you have sent to us all of the checks you have received.
With a majority of people vaccinated, why do I need to test?
The vaccines are working very well. Research supports the notion that most vaccinated people do not suffer serious adverse reactions to infection from the virus. However the vaccinations do NOT prevent infection, and likely those infected are probably asymptomatic. Therefore, unless your entire population in your group and their families are vaccinated, and their families, robust testing and surveillance is the best way to stop proliferation of the infection in your group.
What if I got a check from my insurance company and cashed it?
This is a very difficult circumstance and we understand that money is tight right now for everyone. However, it is your obligation to forward these funds as they are intended to offset the costs of the testing program. If this is your circumstance please reach out to us at support@qrmds.com and we will work on a solution with you.
I can’t log into my portal what is wrong?
If you have tried to log in to your patient portal and are unable to do so, it may be a cookie or cache issue with your device. The easiest way to overcome this is to use the Chrome browser and open an “incognito window”. Try logging in that way and see if the problem persists. You can open an “incognito window” by selecting the 3 small dots at the top of the right hand corner and then selecting an incognito window.