Coronavirus: private companies have closed the tests in a row, but there are plans in the laboratories

The price of PCR tests for the detection of coronavirus has also reached the level of 25-45 thousand guilders: in Slovakia an average of 70 euros (approximately 25 thousand guilders) is charged for a sample and analysis, in Germany 85 are requested euros (31 thousand florins) in the cheapest places.

In France, a test has been worth € 54 (almost € 19,700) since July, following a decision by the State, but laboratories are also subsidized for it, and if someone has a health insurance card, providers must do it at their expense. In the event of epidemics in France, the state has set up free testing centers for those who show no symptoms but want to get tested, which speeds up the detection of those infected and slows the spread of the epidemic.

The French official price is the closest to the level of 19,500 HUF introduced by the Hungarian government, but in Hungary private laboratories do not receive subsidies or supplements from the state: they cannot request more than 17,000 HUF for laboratory tests and 2,500 HUF for sampling. As we wrote before the publication of the decree, this price is a cost price for most private inspection sites, or it is already a surcharge. Even then, several vendors and labs indicated that they would stop conducting rate-based residential testing because they simply couldn’t afford the disadvantage.

As announced, they stopped in line

An important difference is that in most cases, providers did not perform diagnostic tasks, only provided samples, and mostly had contracts with laboratories that analyzed PCR tests. The disembarkation of these private service providers was market rational from the first minute, since the analysis of the samples was carried out by the laboratories for them for 17-22 thousand florins, the remaining 7-13 thousand florins had to bear the costs sampling on site. This includes the purchase of disposable equipment for healthcare workers, worker testing and transport of samples.

Regarding prices around 30 thousand guilders, most of our service magazines have previously said that they benefited from a few thousand guilders per sample, but some was recycled to increase their capacity, because with the arrival of the Second wave, the demand for tests increased in the private sector. Office work can be maintained as long as workers do not contract the disease, but testing is also important for workers next to production lines so there is no downtime in production.

Now Forbes has summed up that most private labs, so not only are samples being taken but also samples are being analyzed, have stopped testing. The price of HUF 19,500 is a surcharge or zero fee for the diagnostic centers themselves. Its costs consist of:

• the cost of the laboratory is around 17 and 22 thousand florins,
• protective equipment, disinfectants come out for 4-5 thousand florins per patient and test (there are disposable and discarded items for each patient, such as gloves; it can be taken several times at the end of the day by sterilization with ozone),
• Added to that are salaries, additional paper, IT, and administrative costs incurred in connection with logging in, data entry, and record publishing.

The investment must also be recovered

Several labs have told Napi.hu that they have tried to cut costs in other ways, so the whole process is worth reviewing. The samples first arrive in a sorting room where they are tagged and assigned an identification code instead of personal data. Subsequently, the material is essentially washed from the cotton picking kits in a vehicle, which is then measured with a machine, the RNA (viral hereditary material) is filtered from the sample and fed into a PCR machine. The process ranges from 40 minutes to 4 hours, with up to 4-5 people working under ideal conditions. Companies also have to manage lab staff labor costs, equipment operating costs, the disposable side of disposable plastic pipettes, and reagents. Usually this is the largest item, this part of the analysis alone costs 20-21 thousand guilders.

Since many places had to buy new equipment at the beginning of the epidemic, labs are also trying to recoup the investment. Therefore, the diagnostic sites reporting to our newspaper say that while the proper tools to analyze PCR samples can be used to detect, for example, the HPV infections that have been in demand in the past, relying only in them it can take years to recover the products. On the other hand, they are now looking for them because many people are saving due to the epidemic or simply reducing the number of their contacts so much that they no longer need them.

You already have ideas to save

Many people told Forbes that they would continue to run tests due to the importance of epidemiological control, while other labs told Napi.hu that they were trying to cut their costs: they would not work on laboratory samples of coronavirus on the night shift. , they would calibrate workflows for fewer people. and try to obtain cheaper but quality disposable reagents and sampling devices. Many of the labs that are still working are switching to this, but they can’t say yet how process optimization will affect their costs, they are only trying for now.

Interestingly, although the price is fixed for PCR tests, there is no charge for serological antigen tests (mainly blood samples) and fluorescent infection detection methods. Therefore, many people are already selling PCR tests in packages to companies and individuals, raising the price of the whole package to a higher level, taking advantage of the loss of a few thousand guilders caused by the PCR tests on the other items.

According to experts, the official price is so bad that up to now there have been brokers who have mixed all the samples taken and examined them all at once. This is because the doses have been tested separately, of which 72-96 samples can fit in a PCR machine for analysis, depending on the type. By the time of the dog, 72-96 samples may have entered a “test tube.” If a positive sample was detected for any of these mixes, that sample volume was retested separately to identify the infected one. This is a significantly more cost-effective solution, but its efficiency is particularly poor because it is more difficult for the machine to detect positivity in samples diluted with each other. But according to experts, with such a round they could save up to 30 percent of costs, that is, they were well below the price of 19,500 guilders. The solution was less risky, as it was performed more frequently in the case of corporate mass sampling, where it was generally tested only as a precaution and there was little chance that you would be found to be infected with a coronavirus.

The state test is free and can also be more

Another way for laboratories to survive is to offer their freed capacity to the National Center for Public Health. Previously, those affected told our newspaper that they had contracted with the state agency at a unit price of 22-27 thousand forints, and the official price was not applied to these investigations. Ultimately, epidemiological authorities will also do well to identify more infected people.