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Comment by testesttest | Hacker News Reader

A test in the US < $50 and is easy to schedule without having a doctor involved at LabCore or similar. Is that an option in CA?

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There are private clinics one can become a member of, but this is extremely uncommon and most people don't know it's an option.

Costs upwards of $3,000 annually.

Only 3,000? chuckles in American

You can go to quest diagnostics or labscorb and order yourself a test for under 200$ (no insurance needed) that would do an entire panel on you. I did this and then called a teledoc for like 40$ (copay) and had them go over hte results with me. It's pretty sweet.

> called a teledoc for like 40$ (copay)

So, more like $7400 annually [0], plus a $40 copay, discounting whatever other health care you needed in the year.

[0] https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2020-section-6-worke...

If you make 100K a year in Canada you pay $29,986 in taxes of which about a third goes to healthcare, so $10000 annually and you still won't get tested preventatively.

The difference is that the US cost is true whether you're wealthy or poor (above a certain margin). In Canada, if you make the median household income of $35k, you presumably pay proportionally less (or even less than that; I can't be bothered to look up the progressive taxation margins) in taxes, so $3500 max.

That's interesting pricing. I just did some blood tests at Quest Labs w/o a Dr and it ran me $200

You got a cholesterol test and only a cholesterol test? That was what the parent comment is about. Tests vary a lot by test. LabCorp states their prices very clearly.

Walgreens also has cholesterol tests for ~30$ https://news.walgreens.com/press-center/news/walgreens-intro...

I read the comment wrong. I thought they meant a full test battery not just a cholesterol test.

In Quebec at least, a doctor's prescription is required for all blood tests even at private labs.

Crazy how different it is vs the States - check out for instance what you can get immediately at this pretty popular chain: https://www.anylabtestnow.com/general-health/

Hundreds of different ones. Granted you still need some level of medical expertise to be able to accurately interpret results on a lot of them but a smart enough layman could probably self diagnose some illnesses with enough homework.

We even need a prescription for repeat labs. So if my doctor is away for personal reasons for a month and I need to have my [thing that I get tested every month] checked, I can't without having to navigate the entire healthcare system to find a workaround.

I would be easy for me to interpret the results as my doctor is clear that [number] should not fall under [threshold]. It even comes back highlighted in red on the result sheet if it falls under that number. And I have clear instruction on what to do if that happens.

But nope.

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