The government on Monday ordered that the rate for rapid antigen testing of private samples in ICMR - approved and private NABH/NABL - accredited laboratories should not be more than ₹750 per test including the rapid kit cost and PPE and manpower costs.
Once the result is known for symptomatic negative cases, samples should be collected using viral transport media and sent to tied-up VRDL labs for retesting by RT-PCR machine.
In such cases, the patients should not be charged in excess of ₹2,800 per sample.
All institutions which intend to do rapid antigen tests have to tie up with ICMR approved VRDL laboratories.
It was mentioned in G.O Rt No.336 that the Indian Council of Medical Research has authorized the testing of rapid antigen test kits for identifying COVID-19 in addition to various existing methods, liberalized the testing and generated five common login credentials for each such district.
As per the ICMR guidelines and keeping in view the recommendations of the CEO of YSR Aarogyasri Health Care Trust to ensure that, public should be provided better access to COVID testing.
The G.O. said interested private NABH hospitals and NABL laboratories must apply to the State nodal officer for testing (ceoap@ysraarogyasri.ap.gov.in and ap_c405@ysraarogyasri.ap.gov.in) permission and ICMR login credentials.
The approved hospitals and labs have been instructed to display the rates in a visible manner to the public.
Besides, the government has directed the district medical and health officers to strictly monitor the rapid testing process in the private hospitals and labs and ensure that no extra charges are levied on the patients.
