Employee COVID testing: Worth the effort?

(Bloomberg) — From nursing homes in New York and a landfill in Utah to Disney World and the Las Vegas Strip, employers are wrestling with workplace safety in the age of COVID-19 and making fraught calculations about how to safeguard both their businesses and their employees. Mass testing, a critical tool to stem the virus’s spread, would appear an obvious solution.

But dogged by issues of cost — diagnostic tests start at around $100 each — access, logistics and employee privacy, tests aren’t part of most back-to-work plans. As health care companies that work with employers in this capacity are fond of saying, there’s no silver bullet.

Another major deterrent is that COVID-19 tests only measure that point in time, notes Lauren Vela, senior director for the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents large employers like Microsoft Corp. and Walmart Inc. If a worker is infected shortly after being tested, it wouldn’t show up but everyone would be falsely reassured by the negative result.

Testing is “not really available, feasible or easy, and it’s not a solution you can do for every employee, every day,” Vela said.

So instead employers are favoring lower-cost, easier-to-implement interventions like temperature checks and symptom screening while also stocking up on masks, hand sanitizer and cleaning wipes. While those measures help, asymptomatic individuals could still transmit the virus.

Insurance help?

At nursing homes and assisted living facilities, which an analysis by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity found account for 45% of virus deaths in the U.S., testing employees is mandatory for many. But the bill quickly adds up.

Len Russ owns Bayberry Care Center in New Rochelle, New York. His roughly 100 employees were tested twice a week for five weeks, at a cost of $20,000 a week. The screening did identify at least six sick employees, but Russ is still waiting to see how to cover the $100,000 tab. The lab that processed the tests will try billing employees’ insurance, though Russ said he doesn’t expect them to cover repeat testing.

Keene Valley Neighborhood House, an assisted living facility in upstate New York, has had success billing insurance, according to executive director Richard Rothstein. But employers are ultimately likely to bear these costs themselves through higher premiums.

Employers, many of whom are already facing massive losses from shutdowns, often find the cost doesn’t make sense. Antigen testing, which screens for active infections and provides rapid and cheap results, has promise but is only beginning to come to market.

Although antibody tests, which screen for past infections and are easier for labs to scale up, seemed like a solution, it isn’t clear what sort of immunity antibodies grant. And after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said antibody tests shouldn’t be used in deciding to send people back to work, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a statement telling employers they can’t require the tests. Diagnostic tests for current infections are permitted.

Logistical challenges abound — results often take days or over a week to come in, supplies continue to be limited — but privacy issues often weigh as heavily.

Suffolk Construction partners with Buoy Health on its workplace safety plan. A testing facility is available as needed, but the builder isn’t implementing mass screenings, Executive Vice President Alex Hall said, citing privacy concerns and the limited usefulness of the results.

“We get it. There’s an element of Big Brother around this situation anyway,” Hall said. “We want to be mindful of how people are feeling.”

Related:

• Coronavirus update: Florida sets new record, insurer wins COVID-19 case and more
• 10 pandemic-related challenges likely to plague employers in the future
• How to reopen businesses safely with OSHA’s conflicting guidelines

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