Personal Physicians
David Katzman, MD & Jennifer DeLaney, MD Internal Medicine Specialists
Where to Test for COVID-19
Due to the overwhelming number of COVID cases in our community, testing labs are restricting access to COVID testing.

 

BJC/Missouri Baptist is limiting testing to higher-risk, symptomatic patients—those over 65 or with concurrent medical conditions that put one at risk for complications from Covid.  They will also continue to do pre-procedural testing.

 

Symptomatic people who are not high risk, people with exposures but no symptoms, and people who require testing for work/school/travel will need to utilize the following resources:

Our office can do some PCR testing through Quest for low risk/asymptomatic/travel patients, but the turn-around time is 1-2 days and Quest limits the number of tests we can perform monthly.
 

In addition, our office intermittently has rapid testing available in limited amounts depending on our ability to find suppliers for them. 

 

Tip: If you are self-performing a rapid test, we recommend swabbing the throat as well as the nose to increase the effectiveness of the test.

Reminders:
When to Test:
The incubation period of COVID is approximately 3 days, which means that for the majority of people the earliest you will test positive is 3 days after exposure.

Compared to PCR tests, rapid tests require a higher quantity of virus to turn positive, so these typically require 5 days post exposure to get an accurate result.

People typically are infectious for 2 days before symptoms develop, and they continue to shed virus for another 3-10 days after symptom onset.

Those who are infected but asymptomatic also shed virus.

So when should you test?
  • 5 days after exposure,
  • Or when symptomatic,
  • Or if you are an infected essential worker without symptoms who wants to return to work before the 10 day isolation period is up.
Change in Office Policies Due to Increased Infection Rates:
With the rate of COVID-19 infections rising in our community, we feel it is best to return to some of our previous COVID-control policies to best protect you and our office staff. 
  • We will return to a hybrid model for physical appointments and follow-ups. This will work a little differently from our previous methods. Your appoinment will be the same day, however it will be broken up into two parts. When you arrive, please call our office and remain in your car. Your doctor will then contact you by phone for the conversation portion of your appointment - so this part will take place while you are still in your car. After your conversation, your doctor will invite you to come in the office for your physical exam and bloodwork. This will help us reduce exposure time to you and others while in the office.
  • We once again ask that any family or friends remain in the car unless necessary to physically assist the patient with their appoinment. 
  • Please call before coming to the office to help limit the number of people in the waiting area at one time. 
Thank you for you cooperation! We are hopeful these policies will be short-lived, and we can return to our normal scheduling sooner than later.  
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11709 Old Ballas Rd. Suite 101, St. Louis, MO 63141


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