CVS is the biggest retail-chain conductor of Covid-19 tests in the U.S. Testing kits were deposited Wednesday at an El Paso, Texas, drive-through.
Photo: Joel Angel Juarez/Bloomberg NewsAs coronavirus cases surge across the U.S., wait times for many people tested by pharmacy chain CVS Health Corp. are stretching longer than they were told to expect.
CVS, the biggest retail-chain conductor of Covid-19 tests in the U.S., on Monday instructed some employees administering tests to tell customers that it typically takes five to seven days to get results, in an internal memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Some customers tested in late June and early July told the Journal and have complained on social media platforms that it has taken 10 days or more to get results from CVS, which processes its tests through third-party laboratories.
On Tuesday, CVS said on its Facebook page that extremely high demand for tests meant it might take six to 10 days for customers to receive results. A number of commenters on the post said they had waited longer than 10 days.
The website for CVS’s MinuteClinic, which conducts Covid-19 tests, indicated on Thursday that results would be available in five to seven days. By Friday, after the Journal asked about the stated wait times, the site had been updated and said results could take six to 10 days. CVS said it had issued updated guidance to employees regarding extended delays.
Some CVS employees involved in testing have expressed concerns about delays and say the company hasn’t been transparent with customers about wait times, according to a person familiar with CVS’s practices. This person said some employees in daily email chats have swapped stories about how testing delays at the pharmacy chain have been getting worse, and technicians processing tests are frustrated.
The company has been trying to keep up with a rapidly changing situation as demand for tests surges, CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis said. “As we are getting information from our lab partners we’re updating our communications to our patients both through our stores and our website,” he said.
“We understand the frustrations about the delays that are being experienced at the third-party labs,” he said. “Our goal was to meet the need in the country for more testing. We stepped up and provided that.”
Prolonged wait times for test results can complicate efforts to find and isolate people with whom an infected individual had contact, making it harder to curb the spread of the virus.
“If you’re going to do contact tracing and the test comes back in five to seven days, you might as well not do contact tracing,” Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease doctor, told the Journal earlier this month.
CVS has worked with multiple labs to process test results, including Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings and Quest Diagnostics Inc. Mr. DeAngelis, the CVS spokesman, said the company is considering adding other labs.
Frank Hudetz, 71 years old, said he was told he would receive results within three days after being tested for Covid-19 at a CVS in Naperville, Ill., at the end of June.
Mr. Hudetz, who has coronary artery disease, sought a test because his 40-year-old son, who lives nearby, had recently traveled to Florida, where cases of the virus are rising. He wanted to be certain he and his son, both of whom lacked symptoms, weren’t infected.
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When he still hadn’t gotten results after several days of checking regularly, he sent an email to CVS on July 12 inquiring about the status. The pharmacy chain responded the same day that there may be a delay because of high demand.
The company’s reply said customers who haven’t received results in more than seven business days should email CVS with the subject line “Urgent” and the company would expedite the request with the lab.
The CVS spokesman said the company can send a request to a lab for a timing update but isn’t able to expedite turnaround times.
Mr. Hudetz says he requested an expedited answer but stopped regularly logging on. When he checked again on Thursday, the portal had his results: negative.
“You would think they might consider testing me sooner rather than later if the labs are making any effort to prioritize processing,” Mr. Hudetz said, citing his age and pre-existing condition. His son was tested the same week at a CVS in Wheaton, Ill., and as of Thursday was still waiting for results.
Another testee received an automated message on Thursday, 12 days after testing at a CVS in Germantown, Md., that her results were pending and could take six to 10 days. “We realize that this is longer than you expected. Please accept our sincere apologies for this delay. Our lab partners are working hard to address this issue,” the message said.
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CVS in its employee memo on Monday instructed workers to tell customers that testing delays were the result of an increase in Covid-19 cases that was causing “backlogs for our lab partners and is delaying their processing of patient samples.”
LabCorp said that until recently it was able to deliver test results on average between one to two days. “But with significant increases in testing demand and constraints in the availability of supplies and equipment, the average time to deliver results may now be four to six days from specimen pickup,” a LabCorp spokeswoman said. The turnaround time for hospitalized patients is faster, the spokeswoman said.
Quest said its average turnaround time is seven or more days. “The supply chain [for Covid-19 tests] has been constrained in the U.S. and globally in the pandemic and that continues to be the case,” said Wendy Bost, a spokeswoman for Quest Diagnostics.
Both companies said these are average times and some cases can take longer.
CVS’s testing push comes as the 57-year-old drugstore chain works to transform itself into a multifaceted health-care company as smaller profits from prescription drugs have dented that revenue stream. It has been working to overhaul its stores into so-called health hubs that offer services from testing and diagnostics to optometry and hearing tests, and has said return-to-work testing and services are a growth opportunity.
More on Covid-19 Testing
CVS has ramped up testing more quickly than rivals Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and Rite Aid Corp. CVS offers self-swab tests at about 1,400 U.S. stores and plans to add more. The company said it also has nine rapid-test sites in medically underserved areas.
Each CVS drive-through testing location can process about 50 tests a day, giving the company capacity to test 70,000 people a day at those sites, the company said. Customers swab themselves in their cars in pharmacy drive-throughs. A CVS spokesman declined to say how many tests the company typically administers but the company has said it administered one million tests between March and the end of June.
CVS administers tests for individuals and employees of companies that pay for testing as part of return-to-work protocols.
Walgreens has 80 testing sites. Rite Aid said on Thursday it was doubling testing capacity with the addition of 161 drive-through testing locations. The company, which uses tests provided by Bio-Reference Laboratories Inc., has been able to deliver results in three to five days, a spokesman said.
Dr. Jon Cohen, executive chairman of Bio-Reference Laboratories, which conducts about 40,000 to 50,000 Covid-19 infection tests a day, said bottlenecks in the supply chain for testing equipment has slowed his company’s ability to process results.
“I would love to know every day what my supplies are and how much we can do,” he said.
Write to Scott Patterson at scott.patterson@wsj.com, Sarah Krouse at sarah.krouse@wsj.com and Sharon Terlep at sharon.terlep@wsj.com
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