Need a COVID test? This Central Coast start-up company is expanding to SLO County

People in San Luis Obispo County will soon have more options for free, rapid COVID-19 tests as a Central Coast start-up company expands its operations into the county.

Based in Monterey County, Lightspeed Testing aims to have testing services up and running in at sites throughout San Luis Obispo County by early October.

Dr. Ken Starr, an emergency room doctor and physician who runs a clinic in Arroyo Grande, is helping lead the effort to expand rapid testing services locally along with Lightspeed Testing founder and CEO Dr. Sameer Bakhda.

“It became clear with the Delta variant that COVID is not going away, and more vendors and restaurants and events are either requiring testing or vaccination status,” Starr said. “I think it’s a good service to the community, and it’s practical and hopefully we’re out of business in a year.”

Starr said the coronavirus testing process is fast and easy.

“They’re literally at the testing site for 45 seconds and we can see a lot of people at one time because of preregistration,” Starr said. “We’ll have results to them within 30 minutes.”

Company offers COVID-19 rapid testing with self-swabbing

To schedule a COVID-19 test through Lightspeed Testing, patients can register online at my.primary.health/r/lightspeed-testing.

The rapid antigen coronavirus test is completely free to patients, but those with health insurance will be asked to provide that information to Lightspeed Testing so the company can bill insurance providers to cover costs.

Patients that do not have health insurance will not be billed, Starr explained.

According to Starr, the test itself takes less than a minute and results will be delivered to the patient by text message or email in about 30 minutes.

Previous COVID-19 tests required a healthcare practitioner to administer the test, which involved swabbing deep into the patient’s nostrils. The process was “brain tickling, very uncomfortable and really obnoxious,” Starr said.

Today, patients can swab their own noses, he said.

“I’ll hand you this Q-tip. You will just rub it in the front of your nose — like you’re picking your nose for 15 seconds on each side — and you hand it back to us,” Starr said. “It’s super easy, totally painless and quicker.”

Although Lightspeed Testing is offering rapid antigen COVID-19 tests for free, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests will require a copay of about $150, the company said.

Tim Morrow, director of strategic development at Lightspeed Testing, said the exact price of that copay isn’t confirmed yet because the cost of PCR test varies between companies.

He said Lightspeed Testing is more focused on providing the antigen test to the community at this time.

While the PCR test can detect the genetic material — or ribonucleic acid (RNA) — that tells the virus to create proteins present on the surface of the virus, the antigen test looks for the presence of those proteins, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Put more simply, the PCR test looks for the genetic fingerprint of the coronavirus, while the antigen test only detects the presence of the virus, Starr explained.

The PCR test has a slightly earlier detection window, and is more sensitive and specific to the COVID-19 virus than the antigen test, Starr said.

“They’re both going to tell you if somebody has an active infection,” the doctor said of the two tests. “For the purposes of our surveillance and (answering questions like) ‘Can you go into a concert?’ I think that the antigen test — which is much less expensive and more available — will absolutely answer that question for you.”

Lightspeed Testing has yet to confirm final San Luis Obispo County testing sites, dates and times.

The company is in discussions with public and private schools in cities across the country about providing rapid COVID-19 tests to students and employees.

“We’re making ourselves available to any school that wants us, but there’s a lot of pieces to make those things happen,” Morrow said.

Lightspeed Testing is in the process of hiring associates to staff its COVID-19 testing sites. The job pays $25 an hour, and candidates with a medical background are preferred.

“If they are medical students and need a reference letter from a doctor, this is a great opportunity,” Morro wrote via text message. “They will often work alongside one of our doctors or other medical staff.”

For more updates, visit the “Upcoming Events” section of Lightspeed Testing’s website at lightspeedtests.com.

This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 5:00 AM.