Letter To Our Patients

Access Medical has dedicated itself to helping our patients get through this pandemic. As a result, we have worked with our lab to get as rapid a turn-around time as possible, which is 2-3 days. We even had the lab set up a “portal” where a patient can sign in on-line and get their own results as soon as they are posted by the lab, thereby eliminating the time it takes the lab to send us the test, and then for us call you.

During the holidays, the lab was closed for 2 days thus delaying the results for many people. A deluge of horrible google reviews hit the internet blaming Access Medical for the delay, some people understandably angry because airlines are requiring tests within 72 hours of flight. However, Access Medical is not to blame for tests being held up. If your test result is late it is almost always due to a lab delay. All swabs for the day are placed in a locked box for the lab to pick up each night. There is almost nothing that goes wrong with this part of the testing; the lab courier takes it from the box, and from that point on it is out of our hands.

Today, a patient’s lab results were sent to Access Medical four days after the test. A few moments after we get the results, the patient happened to call the office for the results and he was given them. He then proceeded to curse out the nurse because “he had to call us”. All he had to do was sign onto the portal and get his results like everybody else.

The media calls medical workers “heroes”, until your test results are held up, then we are “incompetent”. Our staff; some of whom have children and grandkids, some of whom are pregnant, some have their own risk factors for severe covid disease; put themselves between you and a deadly virus, risking everything to do your swabs. Any one of us could catch this virus, we know this, but do it anyway. Why? Because we are dedicated to patient care. To have patients say we are “incompetent” because their test is held up is truly heartbreaking to read on the internet, after swabbing nearly 10,000 people since March.

We realize everyone is under a great deal of stress, but please treat our staff with the respect they deserve.

Lon Goldberg, D.O., FACEP
Medical Director,
Access Medical Associates

1/6/21