{"id":402321,"date":"2026-01-09T16:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T16:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402321\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T16:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T16:21:09","slug":"more-patients-are-ordering-lab-tests-online-frustrating-some-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402321\/","title":{"rendered":"More patients are ordering lab tests online, frustrating some doctors"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a decade ago, 48-year-old Darren Sidaway started having health concerns he didn\u2019t think he could bring to his doctor.<\/p>\n

Sidaway, who lives in Cleveland, had long struggled with weight, and worried that he had metabolic issues that put him at risk for Alzheimer\u2019s or early death. But his routine blood work seemed normal so he did not think his doctor would order more tests, and without that his insurance was unlikely to pay for it. So he ordered about $200 worth of tests \u2014 dozens of them \u2014\u00a0through Goodlabs, a tech company selling lab tests directly to consumers without requiring a doctor\u2019s order.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tests looked at biomarkers his doctor wasn\u2019t monitoring, like uric acid levels, which some studies link to insulin resistance<\/a>, and signs of immune system inflammation. The results showed that for him, some of those markers were elevated compared to a general population. Having read studies linking some of those markers to Alzheimer\u2019s risk, Sidaway started looking for ways to lower them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the stuff that if I went to my doctor [with], my doctor would kind of look at me like I\u2019m weird,\u201d he said of the tests. Later, he ordered his own cortisol test because he suspected stress was driving<\/a> the fluid buildup in his eye. Sidaway said the specialist he consulted was \u201cmildly annoyed\u201d because he felt the test wasn\u2019t clinically useful and also wasn\u2019t recommended for his condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Sidaway didn\u2019t want to wait \u201c20 years for the long-term studies and double-blind, placebo-controlled studies for them to say X, Y, and Z works,\u201d he said. \u201cDoctors are going to have to get used to this and navigate this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/
\n\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: Wellness startup Function Health raises $300 million as consumer lab testing picks up steam<\/a><\/p>\n

Sidaway is among a fast-growing subset of Americans ordering their own lab and genetic screening panels online for hundreds of dollars a pop \u2014 even if they conflict with medical screening standards or insurance guidelines \u2014 desperate for immediate insights into their health. Customers typically order and pay for the tests directly online without speaking to a doctor, and samples are gathered and processed at partner lab companies like Quest Diagnostics, collected at home by a phlebotomist, or, in some cases, collected and shipped by customers themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About a decade ago, 48-year-old Darren Sidaway started having health concerns he didn\u2019t think he could bring to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,27218,137,1676,500,1677],"class_list":{"0":"post-402321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-diagnostics","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-tech","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-stat"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}