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.
For confirming pregnancy, the timing of testing depends on how accurate a woman is about the day she expects her menstrual period as well as the method used for testing. In general, blood tests are more sensitive than urine tests and can be done two days before a woman would expect her period to start.A urine or blood hCG test can be done reliably by 10 days after a missed menstrual period.Even using a urine test, a woman may be able to determine whether she is pregnant the day she misses her period, but the result could be falsely negative.ccasionally, an hCG test is used to screen for pregnancy if a woman is to undergo a medical treatment, be placed on certain drugs, or have other testing, such as x-rays, that might harm the developing baby. This is usually done to help confirm that the woman is not pregnant.