Sameday Health Letter Follows Similar Letters to LabQ and Labworq Earlier This Week
New York Attorney General Letitia James today issued a warning letter to Sameday Health — a private lab with locations throughout the country that claims to offer expedited coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing for a fee — for not meeting promised turnaround times for test results. Numerous consumers have now passed the timeframe in which they were promised test results, even though they paid for expedited testing. Today’s letter notifies Sameday Health that New York law prohibits false advertising and instructs the company to immediately update its signage at test sites and on the company’s website to accurately reflect how long individuals can expect to wait before receiving COVID-19 test results. Attorney General James also demands refunds for all consumers who paid for expedited test results but did not receive them in the timeframe initially promised.
“The mass influx of New Yorkers seeking tests with the holidays here and the crush of the Omicron variant does not give any company the right to lie about turnaround times for COVID-19 test results, let alone charge consumers for expedited tests that were never rushed,” said Attorney General James. “Sameday Health has been charging consumers for free tests on the promise that they can guarantee faster results, but, like so many other companies we’ve seen this week, this company is only making empty promises. Sameday Health must immediately update its signage and its website and notify patients of the realistic timeline in which they will receive results, as well as provide refunds to every patient who paid for expedited test results but never received them in the proper timeframe. I encourage all New Yorkers who continue to see misrepresentations about COVID-19 test turnaround times to file a complaint on my website right away.”
Sameday Health offers free COVID-19 tests for those with insurance and charges for tests for those without insurance. On top of that, the company charges fees for what they refer to as “fast” results that are guaranteed within a particular timeframe. Complaints referred to the Office of the Attorney General showed that consumers who paid for expedited test results did not receive their results in those guaranteed timeframes.
In addition to warning Sameday Health to update its website and signage and to instruct its employees to provide accurate information concerning turnaround times, the letter issued by Attorney General James requests that Sameday Health contact all of its customers who are currently awaiting COVID-19 test results to let them know when they can realistically expect to receive those results. Attorney General James also demands refunds for any consumer who paid for expedited test results but did not receive them in the timeframe originally promised.
Today’s letter follows two separate letters Attorney General James sent earlier this week to LabQ and to Labworq, demanding that the companies take similar steps to update their websites and their signage, and to inform consumers about realistic wait times for COVID-19 test results.
Attorney General James asks any consumer who believes a lab or other testing facility is making misleading statements about their turnaround time for COVID-19 test results to file a complaint online with the Office of the Attorney General’s Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau or call the office at 1-800-771-7755.
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