Listen to this articleBelow is an interview with Myrna Steinbaum, owner and founder of VeniExpress.
Q: This is the first time we have spoken. Please provide a brief overview of VeniExpress.
A: VeniExpress is the mobile phlebotomy company I founded in 2010. The company services all of Southern California and Arizona. We are headquartered in Escondido, California (just north of San Diego).
Q: For those who don’t know much about mobile phlebotomy, tell us more about your services and the types of patients and clients you serve.
A: VeniExpress performs all of the services of a regular patient service center or laboratory, only in a mobile fashion. This means that we come to you—either your home or place of business—to do blood draws and other specimen pickups. It is a necessary service for some and a convenient one for others. Those who are homebound or immunocompromised don’t have to leave their homes to get their necessary lab work done. We allow them to stay in the comfort and safety of their own homes. The service also works well for busy professionals or parents with young children at home who need bloodwork done, but find it difficult to get to a laboratory during the day. We show up at their office or home, do the blood draw, and allow them to get back to their regular daily activities.
We have contracts with some senior living facilities and do blood draws for their residents, and work with some bio-chem labs and concierge medical groups. Our service also works great for patients with certain special needs who find it less stressful to have their blood drawn in a familiar environment. Our client list is actually quite diverse.
Recommended: Q: Why should/do people choose your services over similar companies?
A: People choose to go with a mobile phlebotomy company like ours over going to a patient service center or laboratory for all of the reasons mentioned above, but also for health and safety reasons. With our service there is less of a chance of a patient contracting a nosocomial infection (also known as a hospital-acquired infection) and coming into contact with viruses like COVID-19.
We aren’t the only mobile phlebotomy company in the area, however. We have several local competitors in both Southern California and Arizona, but we feel strongly that our mobile phlebotomy company is the best choice for several reasons.
First of all, our phlebotomists are simply the best in the industry. We go to great lengths to hire phlebotomists who are not only experienced and great at what they do, but who are also compassionate. They are often working with patients who need a little extra care, and we want to make sure every patient gets the type of service they need.
Second, we have a very good quality assurance (QA) system set up at VeniExpress. Our QA team makes sure that our phlebotomists are following all of the necessary protocols to ensure the integrity of every specimen they collect. When the integrity of a specimen is properly preserved, it helps to provide patients and their doctors with the accurate testing results they need.
Finally, our office staff is top-notch! They keep everything organized and running smoothly.
Q: How has COVID-19 affected the way you do business?
A: Not a lot has changed in our day-to-day operations, because even before COVID-19 came along, we already had many of the health and safety precautions in place that are now required. We have always used personal protective equipment (PPE) and practiced strict hand and respiratory hygiene for the safety of both our phlebotomists and our patients. We have, and continue to, take all of the necessary steps to provide a sanitary environment for drawing blood. One thing we have implemented is doing temperature checks prior to entering a patient’s home or place of work. We have also installed some new sanitation stations in our office.
Since March 2020, our business has more than tripled! Patients who had never used a mobile phlebotomy service before were suddenly calling us. Some of them didn’t want to go to hospitals, labs, or patient service centers for fear of coming in contact with the coronavirus. Others were parents who had their young children at home with them during the day doing distance learning and couldn’t leave to have their blood drawn. In addition, several insurance companies began covering mobile phlebotomy services for the first time, making mobile phlebotomy more accessible to more people.
We hired dozens of phlebotomists to help meet the demand. Thankfully, we already had a good software system in place and great administrative support for our phlebotomists, so we didn’t miss a beat!
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Q: What can we expect from VeniExpress in next 12 months?
A: The future at VeniExpress looks very bright! We recently launched a mobile courier service that will meet the needs of even more patients and we’re excited to see where that that portion of our business goes.
We are expecting that the growth we saw during the height of the coronavirus pandemic will be sustainable, simply because now so many more people know who we are and what we have to offer. I feel the pandemic has fundamentally changed the way many people handle their healthcare. They are more open to things like online appointments with their doctors and other services they can have done at home, such as blood draws.
I suspect many things will go “back to normal” once the coronavirus is under control, but I strongly believe mobile phlebotomy is here to stay.
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