Reporting Antigen Test Results: A Refresher on the Requirements

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Jonathan Lips

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has reminded providers about the importance of reporting COVID-19 point of care antigen test results.

Many providers, both care centers and assisted living, are administering antigen tests, using the Quidel Sofia or BD Veritor systems, or the Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 card tests. The MDH epidemiology team recently shared with us that it believes some providers are not consistently reporting the results of those rapid, point of care tests, and so we wanted to share a reminder of the requirements.

As MDH outlines in this guidance – Using Antigen-based Point-of- Care (POC) Testing for COVID-19 in Long-term Care Facilities – providers administering these tests must do two types of reporting.

Laboratory Reporting: If you conduct testing inside your facility, as with POC antigen tests, you are acting as a laboratory under your CLIA certificate and must report all COVID-19 test results, both positive and negative, within 24 hours.

Providers may consult Instructions for Reporting Long- term Care COVID-19 Point-of- Care Antigen Testing Results for details. 

There are two ways for long-term care (LTC) facilities to report these results:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) LTC Facility COVID-19 Module
• Submission of a reporting spreadsheet through MDH Provider Portal

Assisted living facilities may opt-into the NHSN system (a registration process is required) but are not required to do so. Those that do not choose to report through NHSN should continue to report antigen test results directly to MDH.

Federally certified nursing facilities were, for a time, required to report to NHSN. As of January 2021, NHSN reporting is no longer required to meet federal requirements. Reporting is still required, but nursing facilities may choose where they report. MDH prefers for facilities to report to NHSN; however, facilities can also choose to report POC antigen test results directly to MDH. If reporting to NHSN, facilities should not report directly to MDH. CDC will send test results to MDH.

Case Reporting: Separate from the lab reporting, providers must report additional information on positive cases as soon as possible via the State’s secure web form: Submitting Clinical Information on Long Term Care COVID-19 Cases and Reporting Discrepant Laboratory Results. This information is required for all cases, whether tested with a POC antigen test or with RT-PCR by a reference laboratory.

If you have any questions about these reporting requirements, please contact Jon Lips or Kari Everson.