To their dismay, patients have to pay for the drug tests at their own (or their insurersâ) expense. Carol, a chronic pain patient who had been treated for seven years by the same clinic without any testing, reports that she was billed $325 for a urine screen.
Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD. May 2, 2012 -- Researchers say they've found a way to identify the father of a baby as early as the eighth week of pregnancy. The new method, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, uses fetal DNA isolated from the mother's blood.
How does a test tell if you are pregnant or not? A pregnancy test detects the presence of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in your blood or in your urine. hCG is produced in the placenta shortly after the embryo attaches to the uterine lining and builds up rapidly in your body in the first few days of pregnancy.