Reporter Debrief: Tom Scheck on GS Labs
A GS Labs testing facility near the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Andy Kruse | APM Reports
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CATHY WURZER: Our investigative team, APM Reports, has a story today about a COVID-19 testing company that operates in Minnesota and why it's under investigation. The team found that Nebraska-based GS Labs was slow to report some tests to state regulators, and that some customers waited weeks to get results from the company, if they ever got them at all.
Tom Schenk of APM Reports joins us right now to talk about the story. Thanks, Tom. How are you doing?
TOM SCHECK: Hey there. I'm great.
CATHY WURZER: Good. What led you to start digging on this story?
TOM SCHECK: Well, Cathy, we've been covering COVID testing basically since the pandemic started. And after we ran a story last year, we started seeing and hearing complaints about GS Labs. And so then we started doing the basic reporting that anyone does.
We started filing public records requests in Minnesota and in other states where the company operated. We also reached out to consumers and current and former employees of the company. And then over the next 10 months, we ended up going through thousands of pages of records and interviewed more than 65 consumers, former employees, and some public health officials. And my colleague, Anna Canny, had this to say about what we found in Minnesota.
ANNA CANNY: In early-2020, an investment firm with interest in real estate, restaurants, and car washes got into the health care business. The firm partnered with two medical professionals to open a new men's health clinic. But as COVID-19 spread across the country, they quickly shifted their business model to testing.
Since then, the firm, now known as GS Labs, has operated in 21 states. The Nebraska-based company set up pop up sites in places like an abandoned bank and a glow in the dark mini golf course. And they attracted long lines of customers with billboards, online ads, and commercials, like this one that ran in Minneapolis during the Super Bowl. It shows people happy at a Super Bowl party because they tested negative for COVID.
SUBJECT 1: GS Labs-- this year's COVID testing MVP is making a difference in the lives of over a million patients with fast, accessible, and convenient COVID testing.
ANNA CANNY: But an APM Reports investigation has found recurring problems with the speed and accuracy of GS Labs' testing services. Former employees in seven states say GS Labs tried to maximize revenue by pressuring patients into getting three different types of COVID tests at the same time.
Kathy Lusak worked at the Eagan location for about a month last spring.
SUBJECT 2: They wanted you to get all three of those tests, even though individuals did not want them.
ANNA CANNY: The company denies pressuring patients, but the triple tests are the subject of lawsuits by three health insurance companies in Minnesota, Missouri, and Washington state. They accused GS Labs of overcharging for tests and profiteering from the pandemic. At one point, the company was charging up to $979 for a PCR test, the most definitive COVID test.
Officials with GS Labs declined interview requests for this story. But in a written statement, they defended high prices to make up for their substantial startup costs. They say it's the insurance companies who are motivated by what they called, quote, "unmitigated greed."
GS Labs has long maintained that it provides reliable testing for communities in crisis. In a promotional video from September, the company's medical director and founder, Darin Jackson, said employees are driven by a sense of mission.
DARIN JACKSON: It really boils down to everybody knew the importance of the service we were providing. This is the best way we could serve our community.
ANNA CANNY: But for more than a year, GS Labs has repeatedly failed to report timely results. And that's disrupted contact tracing. In one instance last summer, GS Labs admitted in an email to Minnesota state health officials that it was falling behind. The company said they stored samples in freezers for about a month.
In September, a health inspector visited the company's Omaha lab, which processed all of the company's PCR samples at the time. The inspector found the lab was in, quote, "immediate jeopardy," meaning it pose a serious risk to public health.
BURTON WILKE: It's kind of amazing, actually, how poorly they performed in that site visit.
ANNA CANNY: That's Burton Wilke, the Former Director of Vermont's Public Health Laboratory. He reviewed the inspector's findings for APM Reports.
BURTON WILKE: The list of violations or conditions not being met were just pretty astounding in terms of the sloppiness.
ANNA CANNY: GS Labs said some of the findings lacked merit. Others were corrected. And after a follow-up inspection, the Omaha lab was allowed to continue operating. The company spent millions on a brand new facility in Nebraska, but the reporting problems continued.
In December, GS Labs reported that they had delayed providing results to the state of Minnesota for nearly 28,000 tests. Some tests were from samples taken five weeks earlier. GS Labs said the reporting delays only affected state health departments, not individuals. But consumers expressed frustration with the company's reporting process too.
SUBJECT 4: We had no clue that we were just shedding virus all over the place.
DARIN JACKSON: When Minneapolis resident Kate Bailey tested positive for COVID, she worried her two young sons were exposed. So she took them to get tested at GS Labs in Eagan. When the boys received negative rapid test results, Bailey sent them to stay with her ex-husband. The kids went back to school. Six days later, public health officials called her and said one of the boys tested positive.
SUBJECT 4: I said, what are you talking about?
ANNA CANNY: GS Labs told health officials that her son had COVID according to the results of the more definitive PCR test. That surprised Bailey. She says the company didn't contact her with the PCR results.
SUBJECT 4: I felt so guilty. I felt horrified that I was exposing other people and other people could get sick or worse because of my kid.
ANNA CANNY: GS Labs says cases like Bailey's are a result of patient error, because some of the results end up in junk or spam folders. But Bailey says it was a confusing process. She didn't know she had to create a second account to get PCR results. Other public records show that some consumers got someone else's results. That was the case for Lucas Prince, who was tested at a GS Labs site in Bloomington.
SUBJECT 5: I think it's ridiculous that I got somebody else's results. I just don't trust this whole process anymore.
ANNA CANNY: In addition to state investigations, the company is also facing scrutiny from two federal agencies. GS Labs declined to comment on the investigations, except to say they're fully cooperating. The company continues to operate at six Minnesota locations. For NPR News, I'm Anna Canny.
CATHY WURZER: Tom Scheck joins us again to talk a bit more about this story related to GS Labs. Tom, we heard from consumers and the company in Anna's story. So what are public health officials doing about the complaints against this company?
TOM SCHECK: Well, many public health officials declined to be interviewed. But a look at public records shows that there was growing frustration with the slow reporting of results by GS Labs. There were also instances where health officials discussed ways that they could get the company to improve.
But in many instances, they were just stymied by rules and regulations that weren't designed to monitor fast-growing labs that were operating in a global pandemic. And you could see that in those records.
CATHY WURZER: Anna mentioned that there are investigations. Can you tell us more about that?
TOM SCHECK: Sure. We do know that the federal government and several states, including Kansas, Nebraska, and Washington, are all investigating the company. And we learned that through public records and through confirmation from the states and from federal agencies. Now, in Minnesota, it was a little bit more difficult because we figured out that there may be an investigation going on, even though the state didn't officially disclose that information.
And that's because the state has a law that allows a public agency to keep documents secret if those materials deal with an open investigation. The Minnesota Attorney General's office cited that law when it denied our records request relating to GS Labs. And they did it again last week.
CATHY WURZER: So the company says it's cooperating with investigators. What did the company say about the slow reporting to public health officials?
TOM SCHECK: They say some of the issues we raised were from more than a year ago. They fixed many of the reporting problems. And that the company also maintains that any reporting errors only amount to a small fraction of the more than 2 million tests that the company has done.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Tom Scheck, thanks for the update.
TOM SCHECK: Thank you.
CATHY WURZER: Tom Scheck is a reporter with American Public Media. You can read more about this story at nprnews.org.
Tom Schenk of APM Reports joins us right now to talk about the story. Thanks, Tom. How are you doing?
TOM SCHECK: Hey there. I'm great.
CATHY WURZER: Good. What led you to start digging on this story?
TOM SCHECK: Well, Cathy, we've been covering COVID testing basically since the pandemic started. And after we ran a story last year, we started seeing and hearing complaints about GS Labs. And so then we started doing the basic reporting that anyone does.
We started filing public records requests in Minnesota and in other states where the company operated. We also reached out to consumers and current and former employees of the company. And then over the next 10 months, we ended up going through thousands of pages of records and interviewed more than 65 consumers, former employees, and some public health officials. And my colleague, Anna Canny, had this to say about what we found in Minnesota.
ANNA CANNY: In early-2020, an investment firm with interest in real estate, restaurants, and car washes got into the health care business. The firm partnered with two medical professionals to open a new men's health clinic. But as COVID-19 spread across the country, they quickly shifted their business model to testing.
Since then, the firm, now known as GS Labs, has operated in 21 states. The Nebraska-based company set up pop up sites in places like an abandoned bank and a glow in the dark mini golf course. And they attracted long lines of customers with billboards, online ads, and commercials, like this one that ran in Minneapolis during the Super Bowl. It shows people happy at a Super Bowl party because they tested negative for COVID.
SUBJECT 1: GS Labs-- this year's COVID testing MVP is making a difference in the lives of over a million patients with fast, accessible, and convenient COVID testing.
ANNA CANNY: But an APM Reports investigation has found recurring problems with the speed and accuracy of GS Labs' testing services. Former employees in seven states say GS Labs tried to maximize revenue by pressuring patients into getting three different types of COVID tests at the same time.
Kathy Lusak worked at the Eagan location for about a month last spring.
SUBJECT 2: They wanted you to get all three of those tests, even though individuals did not want them.
ANNA CANNY: The company denies pressuring patients, but the triple tests are the subject of lawsuits by three health insurance companies in Minnesota, Missouri, and Washington state. They accused GS Labs of overcharging for tests and profiteering from the pandemic. At one point, the company was charging up to $979 for a PCR test, the most definitive COVID test.
Officials with GS Labs declined interview requests for this story. But in a written statement, they defended high prices to make up for their substantial startup costs. They say it's the insurance companies who are motivated by what they called, quote, "unmitigated greed."
GS Labs has long maintained that it provides reliable testing for communities in crisis. In a promotional video from September, the company's medical director and founder, Darin Jackson, said employees are driven by a sense of mission.
DARIN JACKSON: It really boils down to everybody knew the importance of the service we were providing. This is the best way we could serve our community.
ANNA CANNY: But for more than a year, GS Labs has repeatedly failed to report timely results. And that's disrupted contact tracing. In one instance last summer, GS Labs admitted in an email to Minnesota state health officials that it was falling behind. The company said they stored samples in freezers for about a month.
In September, a health inspector visited the company's Omaha lab, which processed all of the company's PCR samples at the time. The inspector found the lab was in, quote, "immediate jeopardy," meaning it pose a serious risk to public health.
BURTON WILKE: It's kind of amazing, actually, how poorly they performed in that site visit.
ANNA CANNY: That's Burton Wilke, the Former Director of Vermont's Public Health Laboratory. He reviewed the inspector's findings for APM Reports.
BURTON WILKE: The list of violations or conditions not being met were just pretty astounding in terms of the sloppiness.
ANNA CANNY: GS Labs said some of the findings lacked merit. Others were corrected. And after a follow-up inspection, the Omaha lab was allowed to continue operating. The company spent millions on a brand new facility in Nebraska, but the reporting problems continued.
In December, GS Labs reported that they had delayed providing results to the state of Minnesota for nearly 28,000 tests. Some tests were from samples taken five weeks earlier. GS Labs said the reporting delays only affected state health departments, not individuals. But consumers expressed frustration with the company's reporting process too.
SUBJECT 4: We had no clue that we were just shedding virus all over the place.
DARIN JACKSON: When Minneapolis resident Kate Bailey tested positive for COVID, she worried her two young sons were exposed. So she took them to get tested at GS Labs in Eagan. When the boys received negative rapid test results, Bailey sent them to stay with her ex-husband. The kids went back to school. Six days later, public health officials called her and said one of the boys tested positive.
SUBJECT 4: I said, what are you talking about?
ANNA CANNY: GS Labs told health officials that her son had COVID according to the results of the more definitive PCR test. That surprised Bailey. She says the company didn't contact her with the PCR results.
SUBJECT 4: I felt so guilty. I felt horrified that I was exposing other people and other people could get sick or worse because of my kid.
ANNA CANNY: GS Labs says cases like Bailey's are a result of patient error, because some of the results end up in junk or spam folders. But Bailey says it was a confusing process. She didn't know she had to create a second account to get PCR results. Other public records show that some consumers got someone else's results. That was the case for Lucas Prince, who was tested at a GS Labs site in Bloomington.
SUBJECT 5: I think it's ridiculous that I got somebody else's results. I just don't trust this whole process anymore.
ANNA CANNY: In addition to state investigations, the company is also facing scrutiny from two federal agencies. GS Labs declined to comment on the investigations, except to say they're fully cooperating. The company continues to operate at six Minnesota locations. For NPR News, I'm Anna Canny.
CATHY WURZER: Tom Scheck joins us again to talk a bit more about this story related to GS Labs. Tom, we heard from consumers and the company in Anna's story. So what are public health officials doing about the complaints against this company?
TOM SCHECK: Well, many public health officials declined to be interviewed. But a look at public records shows that there was growing frustration with the slow reporting of results by GS Labs. There were also instances where health officials discussed ways that they could get the company to improve.
But in many instances, they were just stymied by rules and regulations that weren't designed to monitor fast-growing labs that were operating in a global pandemic. And you could see that in those records.
CATHY WURZER: Anna mentioned that there are investigations. Can you tell us more about that?
TOM SCHECK: Sure. We do know that the federal government and several states, including Kansas, Nebraska, and Washington, are all investigating the company. And we learned that through public records and through confirmation from the states and from federal agencies. Now, in Minnesota, it was a little bit more difficult because we figured out that there may be an investigation going on, even though the state didn't officially disclose that information.
And that's because the state has a law that allows a public agency to keep documents secret if those materials deal with an open investigation. The Minnesota Attorney General's office cited that law when it denied our records request relating to GS Labs. And they did it again last week.
CATHY WURZER: So the company says it's cooperating with investigators. What did the company say about the slow reporting to public health officials?
TOM SCHECK: They say some of the issues we raised were from more than a year ago. They fixed many of the reporting problems. And that the company also maintains that any reporting errors only amount to a small fraction of the more than 2 million tests that the company has done.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Tom Scheck, thanks for the update.
TOM SCHECK: Thank you.
CATHY WURZER: Tom Scheck is a reporter with American Public Media. You can read more about this story at nprnews.org.
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