Any Lab Test NOW!

Story by Jeanie Edgmon

Getting Answers Shouldn’t Be So Complicated 

For patients and providers, lab testing can turn into a maze of appointments, insurance uncertainty, and surprise costs. A Kansas City-area business owner believes getting answers should be simpler.
Most people have questions about their health – fatigue they can’t explain, numbers they want to track (like cholesterol), or tests their physician recommended. But getting those answers isn’t always straightforward – especially when scheduling, coverage, and cost are unclear.
For patients, lab work often means extra steps: scheduling, getting an order, confirming coverage, estimating out-of-pocket cost, and finding time to get to a lab. For providers, it can mean administrative friction – coverage rules, referrals, and logistics – before a patient ever gets tested.
That’s the space Erin Kimmons saw when she purchased the Any Lab Test Now locations in Overland Park and Independence two years ago.
“I saw a real need in the community for transparently priced, straightforward lab testing,” says Kimmons. “I wanted to eliminate some of the barriers that prevent patients from pursuing answers that lead to being proactive about their healthcare.”
Her answer was to offer patients another option.

A Different Door Into Laboratory Testing

Any Lab Test Now provides direct-access lab testing. Instead of navigating insurance billing, patients can choose the testing they need and pay directly, making cost and next steps clearer from the start.
That distinction can remove several of the questions that often accompany traditional laboratory testing: Is the laboratory in network? Is this particular test covered? Have I met my deductible? Will I need a referral?
For someone with no insurance or a high-deductible plan, those questions can be more than administrative inconveniences. They can become reasons to postpone testing altogether, something Kimmons wants to help prevent.
Direct-pay testing doesn’t replace the role of a healthcare provider. Rather, it creates another pathway to laboratory information that can be useful for patients who encounter barriers to the traditional process.
And increasingly, patients want and expect that kind of access.
People have become accustomed to tracking steps, heart rate, sleep, blood pressure, and other health metrics through technology. They can see their medical records through online portals and research conditions from their phones. It’s not surprising that many also want greater access to laboratory information.

What Patients Want Is Often Simple

Today’s instant information landscape has transformed many things, including increasing access to healthcare information.
Patients want clear information – cholesterol numbers, vitamin levels, or ways to monitor a condition over time. And they want to understand the cost before they commit.

That’s where price transparency becomes particularly important.
Because Any Lab Test Now operates on a direct-pay model, patients know they are purchasing a specific laboratory service rather than entering an insurance process in which the final cost is unknown and may depend on deductibles, coinsurance, and network status.
For some patients, that predictability is the difference between getting a test and putting it off.
For providers, it can offer another option when a patient is struggling with those same barriers.

A Resource for Providers, Too

Kimmons’ locations exist to support the patient and the healthcare community. Local healthcare providers also send patients to the testing locations.
That relationship is important because direct-access testing doesn’t eliminate the provider from the equation. A laboratory result is information. Understanding what that information means and determining what to do with it is where clinical expertise matters.
For practitioners, Kimmons emphasizes that working with her locations doesn’t mean losing control of a patient’s care.
“For practitioners, we’re not a black box,” Kimmons explains. “We’re a small, local shop – you get a direct point of contact, not a call center. We’ll build custom panels around a provider’s specific protocol, and get results back to them and their patient quickly. Or if a doctor just wants to send over a standard lab requisition, we’ll handle the rest – no extra steps on their end.”
Whether a patient is uninsured or facing a high deductible, stuck waiting for an appointment, or simply looking for a more convenient way to complete provider-recommended labs, Any Lab Test Now offers a straightforward, patient-friendly path to getting testing done – quickly, conveniently, and on their schedule.
In those situations, a direct-pay laboratory can become another tool in the provider’s toolbox.
The model gives patients greater autonomy while allowing providers another resource for patients who may otherwise encounter obstacles.

More Than a Blood Draw

The range of testing available is broad, encompassing clinical and specialty laboratory tests surrounding general health, employer solutions, drug and alcohol testing, DNA and pharmacogenomics, STD/STI testing, hormone panels, allergy and sensitivity testing, nutritional injections, and more.
Some of what walks through the door is patient-initiated curiosity as much as physician referral. Alpha-gal syndrome – the tick-borne meat allergy that’s been getting national attention – is a test people increasingly want to check for on their own. Same with cyclospora during a produce recall, or STI testing someone wants done privately and quickly.
“People hear about something in the news and want to know if it applies to them,” Kimmons says. “You don’t need to wait for an appointment to ask that question.”
Some tests also take on particular relevance at certain times of the year with national awareness campaigns. September, for example, is National Cholesterol Education Month, making it a natural opportunity to focus on cardiovascular health. Any Lab Test Now offers lipid panels including triglycerides, along with other heart-health-related testing.
September is also Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Prostate-specific antigen, or PSA testing is among the options available for men.
Beyond any single test, the value is access: local, high-quality testing when you need it, with Any Lab Test Now.
Laboratory testing can provide valuable information, but results should always be considered in context. A number outside a reference range doesn’t necessarily mean a person has a disease, just as a result within the normal range doesn’t tell the entire story of someone’s health.
That’s where patients and healthcare providers remain partners.
Direct-access testing can help make the information accessible. Providers help patients understand what that information means and help them take action.

Where Healthcare Is Headed

For Kimmons, the past two years have provided a close-up view of a healthcare landscape that is changing in meaningful ways. Patients are asking more questions, seeking greater transparency, and becoming increasingly comfortable taking an active role in managing their own health.
That doesn’t diminish the role of healthcare professionals. If anything, it creates an opportunity for a more informed conversation between patients and providers.
“When people have access to their health information, it gives them something to talk about with their provider,” says Kimmons. “It’s not about replacing that relationship. It’s about giving people more data points to bring to it.”
That distinction may become increasingly important as healthcare continues to move toward greater consumer involvement. For providers, that shift can bring challenges, but it can also create opportunities to meet patients where they are.
A patient who arrives at a doctor’s appointment with laboratory results, questions about a health marker, or a desire to monitor a particular aspect of their health may be starting a conversation that otherwise might never happen.
And perhaps that is the most useful role for accessible laboratory testing: not providing all the answers, but making it easier to begin asking the right questions.
For Kimmons, that’s where the value lies.
“At the end of the day, we want people to have access to information about their own health and have that information be the catalyst for meaningful and informed conversations with their healthcare providers.”
Ultimately, the lab isn’t the destination, she contends; it’s the beginning of a better patient-provider conversation.
Ready to get answers without the complexity? Visit the Overland Park or Independence Any Lab Test Now location to learn more and take the next step.

For more information about Any Lab Test Now, visit anylabtestnow.com/overlandpark-66209/Overland Park, Kansas location (913-320-8669)
or anylabtestnow.com/Independence-64055/ Independence, Missouri location (816-837-8669)