FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Jan. 27, 2022

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) is pleased to announce that Premier Medical Laboratory Services and DHEC’s other testing vendors are reporting all backlogs have been cleared and turnaround times for COVID-19 test results are back to the standard 48-hour time frame.

According to Premier Chief Executive Officer Kevin Murdock, Premier corrected its backlog of surge-related testing through the investment of millions of dollars in additional equipment and the hiring of more than 300 South Carolina employees. 

“Premier Medical Laboratory Services is now back to pre-surge turnaround times,” Murdock said. “We are processing 95 percent of our results in under 24 hours.” 

“Each test that we receive is important to us because we know that it affects someone’s quality of life. That’s why our team worked tirelessly to hire and train hundreds of South Carolinians and expand our infrastructure so that we could return to our normal turnaround times of results. We hold ourselves to the highest standards as a laboratory and look forward to serving South Carolina’s diagnostic testing needs.” 

DHEC COVID-19 Coordination Office Director Louis Eubank said the clearing of the testing backlogs was welcome news.

"We appreciate the patience of all South Carolinians and the hard work of our lab partners to respond to the challenges presented by the surge in testing demand,” Eubank said. “We thank all of our vendors for working diligently to provide timely test results and are optimistic that the adjustments made by all parties will ensure no such backlog occurs again."

DHEC continues to advise anyone who does experience a wait time for a test result longer than 72 hours from the time they were tested to call 1-888-697-9004 or email ACC-Testing-CustomerService@dhec.sc.gov to get your results. Please limit comments to one phone message or email; this helps avoid multiple requests for the same test. When leaving a message, please provide your name, date of birth, a good contact number, the test date and testing location and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Free at-home tests also are available from DHEC’s public health department testing sites (check DHEC’s testing locator page for local availability) and for free through the federal government at covidtests.gov.

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