Clinic’s test reporting under investigation

Urgent care chain’s results have not been properly submitted

The Connecticut Department of Public Health is investigating why coronavirus test results from an urgent care company with 17 locations across the state have not been properly reported to state authorities.

DPH spokesman Av Harris said Friday that the agency’s Facilities Licensing and Investigations Section has opened an investigation into Docs Medical Group. Harris said he couldn’t comment further on the scope of the investigation or a timeframe on when it will be completed.

At a news conference earlier this week, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said that the city’s COVID19 numbers, as well as other towns in the region, will be impacted because “Docs’ urgent care facilities do a significant amount of testing and they haven’t been adequately reporting that data to the state.”

When those results are tabulated, Elicker said they will likely push New Haven into red alert status.

Docs offers a rapid COVID-19 test that promises results within an hour as well as the standard PCR test. The company’s website says that the PCR tests are sent to another lab for processing and it could take five to 10 days to get those results back.

There are 17 locations across the state from Danbury to Orange to West Hartford. Harris said the investigation involves test results from all 17 facilities. Calls to the company headquarters seeking comment weren’t returned Friday morning.

Elicker said there are four Docs clinics in the New Haven region.

“They are testing hundreds of people each day throughout the region and we presume that a lot of those people who get tested there are New Haven residents,” Elicker said.

Elicker said once those test results are added to the city’s COVID-19 numbers, it will likely move New Haven into the state’s red alert category. The city is already delaying in-school learning past Nov. 9 and is rolling back to Phase 2 of the state’s reopening plan.

DPH officials haven’t said how