Carbon Health’s Approach to the Coronavirus Outbreak in California, and Beyond

Every day more and more cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) are reported around the world and, in some cases, in our own communities. We have already seen two COVID-19 positive cases in our clinics that don’t have a traceable source. So it was clear to us that the community spread had started in California a few weeks ago. We decided that our responsibility, both as a healthcare provider and a technology company, was to address this problem head-on. Since then we dedicated the entire company to this effort, and all teams have been working tirelessly on various initiatives from finding ways to expand our testing capabilities to using technology to help mitigate the situation. I wanted to share what we have done so far and what we are planning to do next. We would be happy to collaborate with other providers and share notes.

Our Plan is Evolving Rapidly

The situation in the US and California is dynamic. Every day there’s breaking news from other parts of the world and other parts of the country about drastic choices authorities and healthcare providers are making to take care of their communities. It’s no different for us. We’re following the advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Public Health (DPH) closely, but at this point our primary objective is doing the right thing in our community.

What We're Doing

Coronavirus Assessment Tool

We’ve built a tool to help individuals self assess their risk of coronavirus infection. It’s updated constantly, based on the latest CDC protocols and our medical opinion, and provides personalized recommendations based on the level of risk indicated by your answers. Where necessary, we refer you to a clinician (ours, yours or the ER) to help. If necessary, we’ll follow up with you daily over the next 14 days via our app, to assess your risk, and update you if your answers are subsequently classified as high risk by the CDC. No matter what your situation is, we want to be there with you.

This tool is free and it’s available here. Note that you will need to create an account to use it. Even though the first step is automated, collecting data from patients as a healthcare provider means initiating a care process. So we need to set up a proper patient profile. I am sure there are purely informational tools out there if you prefer to stay anonymous.

Coronavirus Testing in Our Clinics

As of Monday, March 9, we’re collecting COVID-19 test specimens at all our California locations in the San Francisco Bay Area (East Bay, South Bay, and North Bay) and in LA County. In a time like this when social distancing is strongly encouraged for your health and your community, we strongly recommend that you assess your risk via our tool first, before deciding to go into any testing center, including ours. If you decide you absolutely need to be tested, our list of urgent care locations are here. If a Carbon Health location is not accessible to you, we recommend you to call your local clinics ahead of the time since most healthcare providers aren’t doing testing.

We’ve expanded staffing in all our locations and channels to handle the increased demand and make sure we’re there for our communities. In the last couple of days, we’ve already tested over 100 patients in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and we expect that to climb in the coming days.

Video Visits for Coronavirus Concerns

All Coronavirus-related virtual visits will have a $0 copay with insurance. The cost is $49 without insurance. Similarly, we recommend using our Coronavirus Assessment Tool as the first step. It will suggest a video visit as the next step if needed. But if you definitely want to book a video visit, you can click this link (we’re only licensed in California at the moment).

Tools for Partners

We’re working with hospital partners in several ways:

• Building tools to help monitor healthcare workers who may have been exposed.
• We are extending our virtual care capabilities to free up clinic load, and ensure that the only patients walking into medical facilities are those who absolutely need help.
• We’re making our Coronavirus Assessment Tool available to screen the patient-base of our partner hospitals.

What’s Next

• We’re planning to build a comprehensive database of testing centers across California. This process is highly manual, painstaking, and the cost of mistakes is high. If you’re doing something similar or want to help — let’s combine forces. Email us at coviddata@carbonhealth.com.
• We’re trying to expand our testing capacity throughout California. This is still in flux, but the plan is to learn from countries and communities that have successfully contained the pandemic and create mobile, streamlined testing infrastructure flexible enough to deploy in any community that needs it.
• We’re planning to cap out of pocket costs in our clinics for uninsured patients. For a typical patient with severe COVID-19-like symptoms, a standard medical protocol may include a flu test, chest X-Ray, strep test in addition to the coronavirus test. The cost will be prohibitive for a lot of people. And this is not the time we want people to make financial compromises on their treatment. I don’t know if it’s ever a good time to make that compromise, but that’s a longer subject. If you are a philanthropic organization and want to chip in, email us at covidresponse@carbonhealth.com.

At Carbon Health, our mission has always been to make world-class healthcare accessible to everyone. As a tech-enabled healthcare provider, we are in a unique place to implement changes quickly for the safety of our patients and our clinicians. If you want to help and you are not sure how, email us at covidresponse@carbonhealth.com.

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