Oh, you want to get a Covid test, do you? Little did you know that the clever people who do these things also give you endurance, patience and intelligence tests at the same time! Our wonderful healthcare people and helpful governments have somehow arranged a diverse number of ways to make you fill out varying forms in varying orders, only to find out that there are no available appointments.
Don’t you think the highly paid experts who created these services could have done something simple, like following the model of dimensional search used at little places like Amazon, travel sites and other places that care about customers? I guess that would have been too easy or something. And besides, medical scheduling in general is a nightmare, why should this be different?
Looking for a test: CVS
Search told me that my local CVS has testing. I clicked to the website of my local store. I clicked “schedule a test.” Although I had come from the local store, I guess the people who built covid testing didn’t manage to get the local site to pass on its location, so I entered my location again as requested.
Now I have to “answer a few questions” for no-cost testing. Eight questions. Then when I say yes to recent symptoms, 12 more questions plus the date my symptoms began. Then clicking that I was truthful.
Next, pick a test type, look at a map of local stores and see a list of dates starting today. I pick today. There’s a list of each store, with a button under each to “Check for available times.” Click on the first store. Here’s what appears:
There are no available times at this location for Tue., 12/21. Try searching for availability on another date.
Wow. I go up and pick the next day. Click. No times. Pick the next day. Click. No times.
CVS has pioneered a whole new way to help customers pick a time! You pick a date, pick a store, click and hope you get lucky. Then pick a different store and/or a different time and click again. And keep rolling until you hit the jackpot! Assuming there’s one there…
Since there was no end in sight, I tried something different.
Looking for a test: Walgreens
No questions first. Hooray! Just put in a location, pick a test type and see a list of locations. … Almost all of which had “No appointments available.” Let’s check out the one nearest to me, which said “Few appointments available.” I click. First I have to agree to lots of things. Now I have to enter my full patient information: name, gender, DOB, race, ethnicity, full address, phone and email. Then review and click that it’s correct.
Then, it’s the covid questions: my symptoms, contacts, medical conditions, pregnancy. Have I had vaccines? For each, which one and the date given. Have I tested positive in the past?
Now, after all that, I can pick an appointment. Back to that bait-and-switch first screen with test types and locations. I pick the location. Now a calendar shows up. Today’s date is highlighted. This message in red is below: “No time slots available within the selected date. Try a different date for more options.” The next 7 days are in normal type, beyond that they’re greyed out. Do any of them work? I try each day individually. They each give the same message! Why couldn’t you have told me that NO DATES WERE AVAILABLE!?!? Maybe even … BEFORE I filled all that stuff out??
Looking for a test: The state of NJ
Since I live in NJ, I get regular dispatches about how the state government cares about my health in general and covid in particular. So I went to the state site.
Which it turns out is operated by a private company, Castlight.
I put in my zip code. They list places that offer testing, one of which is the Walgreens I just tried. But I click on it anyway, and they link me to Walgreens testing … in a town 10 miles away instead of my town, which was explicitly the one I clicked on. Good job!
They got my hopes up by listing Quest Diagnostics, which has a location in my town. I answer a long list of questions and am told that I quality for a test! Hooray! But then …
I have to sign up and provide loads of personal information before even knowing I can get a test. That’s it for Quest.
Looking for a test: The local county
Maybe my local county would have done it better? Let’s check it out.
I get a long list of testing places. How do I find one near me? After a few minutes of confusion, I discover that the sites are listed alphabetically! Now that’s helpful!
CVS of course is near the top, with a line per location. My town isn’t listed even though I already know that the local CVS claims they do tests. Crap.
Looking for a test: Digging deep
I found a private place, Solv, that claims to link you right to testing places. I tried. They had a clinic not too far from me. Clicked. I’m still on Solv, which is potentially good. After more clicking It turns out that no appointments were available today or tomorrow, the only choices. Gee, Solv, maybe in the next release of your software you could possibly only show choices that were actually, you know, available??
I finally tried a little pharmacy that is local and has remained independent. They offer tests. I clicked and got to a page dedicated to the pharmacy under a place I’d never heard of, Resil Health. Right away they list dates and times available. Just a few days out.
I pick a date and enter the usual information on a clean form, but also my insurance information and a photo of the front & back of my card. Click. The time is no longer available! But at least picking another time was easy. I was disappointed that it was a couple days out. They sent an email with a calendar invite. I accepted. There was a link to reschedule. I tried it. To make a long story short, sometimes when I clicked reschedule the dates available changed, and earlier ones appeared. After some effort I snagged one the same day! Then I went. All I had to do was show my driver’s license – since they had everything else, neither I nor anyone at the pharmacy had to do paperwork – Resil health did it all, including the reporting.
It was a pain, but by far the best. Hooray for small-group entrepreneurs, getting a service up and running that makes things easier and better than any of the giant private companies and certainly any of the pathetic ever-so-helpful governments.
Looking for a test: Is it just me?
I had to wonder: is New Jersey particularly bad, as snotty New Yorkers like to joke about, or is it just the way things are? It turns out that, even in high-rise Manhattan, covid testing is tough. This article spells out the issues.
Mayor Bill de Blasio keeps telling New Yorkers frustrated with long waits and delayed results at privately-run COVID testing sites to use the city’s public options — but his administration’s incomplete and bulky websites make that exceedingly difficult.
It’s not just me.
Conclusion
I got my test. I’ll get the results soon. Let's hope getting those results is better than it often is in medicine. What’s the big deal? I’m only writing about it because it’s a representative story in the life-in-the-slow-lane of typical software development. It’s possible to write good software. Thankfully there are small groups of motivated programmers who ignore the mountain of Expert-sanctioned regulations, standards and processes that are supposed to produce good software. These software ninja’s have a different set of methods – ones that actually work! For example, in New York City:
The complaints echo the problems New Yorkers encountered when city officials first rolled out their vaccine appointment registration systems this spring — prompting one big-hearted New Yorker with computer skills to create TurboVax to workaround the mess.
“We don’t have a single source of truth for all testing sites in NYC,” tweeted the programmer, Huge Ma, who was endearingly dubbed ‘Vax Daddy’ by grateful Gothamites. “Tech can’t solve all problems but it shouldn’t itself be a problem on its own.”
One guy – but a guy who actually knows how to produce effective, working software in less time than the usual software bureaucracy would take to produce a first draft requirements document. This is one of the on-going stream of anomalies that demonstrate that a paradigm shift in software is long overdue.
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