Davita Labs Awful

[Hootie]

Has anyone had trouble getting the labs out of Davita? We do home with Daivta. We love our nurse and she is trying to get to the bottom of the issue. The labs says they got no tubes, only some tubes or they said the test got messed up or they did not do tests on K for a batch. Even when my wife went to in center for about 10 days, they screwed those up. My running tally is that have screwed 5 of the last 6 tests up in some way. Nephrologist even questioned one test as not accurate. She had us to go to hospital to do blood work. Its critical as my wife just got out of hospital and need some results on K, etc. Monthly meeting today with Davita team....Its going to get heated. 

[iolaire]

In center the lab work seems dependable. I believe they use a Florida DaVita lab.  They have people who drive by and pickup the lab work each night so its not getting FedEx'ed around like it might be for you.

[Simon Dog]

She had us to go to hospital to do blood work.

Has she tried taking her own filled blood tubes to the hospital?

I did that a few times and got funny looks.

- Where is this coming from?
  - Home

- What?
  - Sure, got me one of those home phlebotomy kits from Amazon.

The finally accepted the tubes when I told them to check with my neph (very well known at the hospital) if they had any questions.

[cattlekid]

I had nothing but problems with DaVita Labs. 

I did home hemo and followed the packing instructions to the letter.  I would drive all over creation to find a drop box as I had to use FedEx.  I feared leaving the box outside when it was raining or snowing.  I tried bringing the box into my local FedEx office and because it was labeled as "hazardous", I think I am now on the FedEx watch list. 

No matter what I did, about 3/4 of my hemoglobin tests would either be unusable or come back with a wacky result that was way out of the norm. 

Like you said Hootie, I had to schlep to the hospital to get labs done when DaVita Lab couldn't use my draw.  Those results were always dependable. 

Personally, I think DaVita could take some of their profits and co-invest with Quest Diagnostics or the like on regional labs.  Shipping blood all over the darn country just seems prone to causing problems.

[Hootie]

Nephrologist asked her to go to hospital to get labs. That was fine except it took two hours to drive, sign in, wait and drive home.  Never tried taking blood to hospital. will ask dr about it this am.

[Simon Dog]

Nephrologist asked her to go to hospital to get labs. That was fine except it took two hours to drive, sign in, wait and drive home.  Never tried taking blood to hospital. will ask dr about it this am.

When I was taking blood to the hospital twice a week, I was able to tell the valet "don't even take the car to the parking lot" since I was in and out of the hospital in less than 2 minutes.

I doubt we will see local labs on a routine basis - just remember "follow the money".   My MD has been great about ordering local labs when there was a need for timely information, but there is also a hesitation to calibrate the EPO (now Micera) based on results from "outside" labs - even the one from the hospital where my MD is rather high on the food chain.

[iolaire]

Nephrologist asked her to go to hospital to get labs. That was fine except it took two hours to drive, sign in, wait and drive home.  Never tried taking blood to hospital. will ask dr about it this am.

Do you not have national/local lab companies like LabCorp or Quest where you could get the labs done?

Also some of the DaVita labs they need to put in the centrifuge after pulling them.  I don't know which ones, but some are.

[Simon Dog]

Also some of the DaVita labs they need to put in the centrifuge after pulling them.  I don't know which ones, but some are.

All covered as part of home hemo training.  You even get a nice little centrifuge (far nicer than the one in my childhood chemistry set).  I know the SST tube (tiger top) and gold post need spinning, and the SST tube should be allowed to clot before starting the spin cycle.

[Hootie]

Simon is right. We have our own centrifuge to spin at home. My wife was a nurse and makes sure we spin the right ones and the right amount of time. Today for the in center meeting, we were all on the phone with the labs. Apparently, the labs get dispersed to different groups at Davita and some groups lost the tubes. At first they were trying to blame me as "they were not sent" but they found the green top one but not the others which were in same package.  Nephrologist was not happy. They redrew blood and sent off today. One thing I learned that the labs go by what nurse put into system and if you use a different day, she must call and sync the records. I tell her when we pull. Previously we had two different nurses and not sure they always did that.

We only used the hospital at the doc's insistence due her wanting the results stat. I get the feeling she put them on notice today behind closed doors.

[caregivertech1]

In the for what it's worth dept. with Fresenius we collect monthly labs using SST tube (clot before spinning) a lavender tube (Hgb etc)  a gold top tube (for post Bun) that also requires spinning without clotting. Quarterly we'll take a blue top for Al and PTH. Spectra Labs provides Fed Ex next day air shipping boxes. In 3 1/2 years  we've been doing this they have always arrived the next day and analyzed that day. Most of the  time the results also are  posted the same day.

[Simon Dog]

a blue top for Al and PTH.

Dark blue for AL.  I use a lavendar tube for PTH.  (Light blue for clotting factors)

There was one time this past winter when the delivery was delayed and the tubes were unusable once they arrived.]

What is nice about the Fresenius system is the ability to see the results at the same time the clinic gets them.

[caregivertech1]

Yeah, Simon Dog, PTH is lavender....trying to type from memory:)  I called spectra when you mentioned in an earlier post that you were able to see your results on your home computer. They checked and said our clinic wasn't yet set up to do that. Can't wait until we do.

[smartcookie]

"Losing" blood tubes sometimes means that whoever shipped them or received them at the lab dropped the bottles and broke them... I still don't understand how you "lose" tubes of blood.  ::sigh:: 

[Simon Dog]

The URL I get my FMC/Spectra labs from is https://go.acumenehr.com/health/portal/Login.aspx

I would be skeptical of "not set up to do that" and wonder if it really means "we are not bothering to do that" or "Its a pain to set up patient access".   In my case, the patient access was set up directly by the MD.