County health officials released plans for a government-funded COVID-19 testing site on Monday after a recent uptick of cases in Indiana.
The testing site, to be set up at the Brown County Music Center, will be free and accessible to any Brown County resident. It will open on Tuesday, July 14 and test between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. The clinic will run through Saturday, July 18 and will reopen on Monday, July 20 for the whole week, county officials announced.
This is a drive-through clinic; no appointment is required.
“This is a logistics-and-planning-heavy operation, but it is a priority,” said Brown County Public Health Preparedness Coordinator Corey Frost.
The state reported 748 new confirmed cases of the virus on Friday, the highest one-day total since May 5. On Monday, Brown County’s confirmed cases were at 44 total since testing began in March, with five of those reported since July 4.
Before the announcement of testing at the music center, there was only one testing site for the virus in the county, at the Brown County Health and Wellness Center. That testing site, however, is not government funded, and therefore, uninsured people must pay around $90 to $100 in order to get tested.
Additionally, you must be a member of the center to get tested, a membership that costs $65 a month according to nurse practitioner Amanda Collier.
“Insurance will pay for the test if you are covered,” she said. “But this site is not government funded, and so testing here just cannot be free.”
Anyone who calls into the wellness center can get a free, over-the-phone health screening, likely provided by Collier. The center is not currently testing asymptomatic patients, but if the screening determines that a person has symptoms or that testing is necessary, an appointment will be scheduled.
“If you have been exposed to a person that has tested positive, we may also want to get you in for a test as well,” Collier said. “However, currently, we are putting an emphasis on those people showing symptoms of the virus.”
Same-day testing appointments are often available for those whom the screening deems necessary, Collier said, but walk-in appointments are strictly prohibited.
“We need for people to call into the office first,” she said. “We have a system to schedule these tests, and the phone screening is the first step.”
Collier said patients are advised to call slightly ahead of arrival at the center in order to give the tester time to “gear up” with protective gear, and patients are told to stay in the car once they arrive. A nurse practitioner will meet the person in the car, swab the patient’s nostril and secure the sample.
“It’s like a big, long Q-tip,” Collier said. “It just goes up the nose and into the back of the throat. It is a pretty quick procedure once we have it all set up.”
A patient can ordinarily expect a reading within 24 to 48 hours, Collier said, but testing results are currently backed up statewide. Now, testing facilities are advising patients to wait up to seven days for results.
However, delayed testing results aren’t the only issue the wellness center has been experiencing. Delays with mask and protective gear availability for workers, as well as the amount of tests, have occurred at the facility, Collier said.
“We have encountered some issues with the amount of tests we have available to people,” she said. “That is why we are only testing the symptomatic at the moment. We have to ensure our limited tests are going to the most pressing cases.”
Collier said that some of these availability issues have been solved in recent weeks, but they still present themselves from time to time. The wellness center recently set up a second testing and results lab in the facility to help alleviate some of the concerns.
If a person cannot pay the fee or provide insurance, and calls into the center expressing that they have symptoms, Collier said staff try to provide them with alternative options to get free testing in other neighboring counties.
The Indiana State Department of Health contracted with OptumServe to provide coronavirus testing at several sites across the state, and hospitals and some doctor’s offices also have access to testing. A map of testing sites is available at coronavirus.in.gov.
Compared to other nearby counties, Brown County has a significant lack of COVID-19 testing sites. To the west, Monroe County offers four testing sites, three of which have or have recently had drive-thru availability. Bartholomew County has three free testing sites available, while Jackson County has four.
The rate of testing in Brown County relative to the population is also lower here than in surrounding counties. If all 602 coronavirus tests reported so far for Brown Countians correspond to one per person, as much as 3.4 percent of this county’s population has been tested. Surrounding counties had testing rates of between 6.2 and 8.7 percent as of Friday.
Brown County’s lack of affordable and accessible testing has become a growing concern of residents on social media, but Frost said that the health department and county government believe the testing site at the music center will help.
“The health and well-being of our county continues to be the highest priority of Brown County Emergency Management and Brown County Department of Health,” the county’s press release said. “While our numbers slowly continue to climb, we have remained very low compared to other areas of the state.”
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Visit the Indiana State Department of Health’s website, coronavirus.in.gov/2524.htm, to see a map of COVID-19 testing facilities statewide, as well as the requirements for testing at each location.
To inquire about testing at the Brown County Health and Wellness Center in Nashville, call the COVID hotline at 844-784-2900 or the center at 812-720-3297.
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