Where to Get Tested for COVID-19 In North Texas
Testing sites around North Texas are seeing an uptick in demand as omicron spreads.
If you are looking for a COVID-19 test, the following providers are behind some of the larger testing sites around North Texas and may offer free rapid antigen tests with quick results or the more reliable PCR test which takes longer:
Neighborhood Medical Center hosts a drive-thru clinic off the Dallas North Tollway. Doctors told NBC5 they expected to test 600 people on the Wednesday before Christmas.
Tarrant County Public Health offers 14 testing locations which include drive-up or walk-in locations.
Dallas College offers daily drive-thru testing at Richland and Mountain View campuses. Both provide free PCR tests with no appointment needed, but results often take 48 hours.
Denton County Public Health updates its website with upcoming drive-thru testing clinics. The next clinics are scheduled for the week after Christmas.
CVS and Walgreens offer free testing at their pharmacies, but online appointments are booking fast as Christmas approaches.
Urgent care clinics also offer testing but can come with additional costs for seeing a doctor and long wait times.
Though free widespread testing is available, private labs promise speedy results at a cost.
Companies like Any Lab Test Now have several locations across North Texas and offer several types of COVID tests with prices listed between $100 – $300 depending on the turnaround.
My Labs Direct offers free COVID-19 testing for those with symptoms or who have been exposed to the virus at their four DFW locations, but also offers a concierge service where they will travel to your home or office to test you for a price.
Dr. Beth Kassanoff-Piper with the Dallas County Medical Society says if you have any symptoms, regardless of vaccination status, get tested.
“Certainly if anyone in your family has any symptoms at all, even if it’s a little sniffle, those people absolutely need to be tested before they would come to your family gathering,” Dr. Kassanoff-Piper said.
Though increasingly hard to find on pharmacy shelves, she believes the rapid antigen at-home test BinaxNOW can be a great tool before you attend holiday gatherings.
“The home tests are very good at telling us if someone is contagious with COVID,” Dr. Kassanoff-Piper said. “They aren’t the most sensitive test, but if a home test or the rapid Antigen test is negative then we know people don’t have enough viral particles floating around that they could be contagious to somebody else.”
Doctors say the at-home tests are best used immediately before gathering, even if you are fully vaccinated for peace of mind.
“You can feel safe at that event that you’re not potentially going to spread COVID to somebody else,” said Dr. Kassanoff-Piper. “But that window of protection is not multiple days long. It really has to be done within a few hours of an event, certainly within 24 hours.”
As for rethinking holiday plans and travel, doctors say it depends on your health and vaccination status.
“I think if you’re perfectly healthy and you’ve been vaccinated and boosted and the people you’re going to visit are the same and you wear your mask consistently and do all the right things to travel, I think you can do that,” Dr. Kassanoff-Piper said. “But if you are really high-risk or if you have any reason to think that you didn’t respond well to the vaccine or you haven’t had your booster, I think I would be very cautious about traveling at this time.”
