Lab Services

What happens on the day

If you have not been to the hospital before, you can register on the hospital website or mobile app before you come. Registration is free and gives you a hospital number, which saves time at the desk.

Billing is completed before the sample is taken, so the order is: slip, billing, then the collection room. A Guest Relation Executive goes through the tests and the charges with you and walks you to the right counter. Giving blood takes a few minutes. Any wait you have is the queue, not the test.

• Bring the prescription slip, and past reports if you have them
• Bring photo identification and your insurance or corporate card if you have one
• Register on the app or website first if you are new, or at the desk when you arrive
• Billing first, sample after
• Ask what time the report will be ready before you leave the counter

Do you need to fast?

Some tests need an empty stomach and most do not. The doctor who ordered the tests knows which ones yours are, and the collection counter will tell you if you ask when you book or arrive. If a test on your slip needs fasting, coming first thing in the morning is usually easiest.

Do not stop a prescribed medicine to prepare for a test unless the doctor who prescribed it has told you to. If you are diabetic and have been asked to fast, say so at the counter before the sample is taken.

For a full health check package the hospital asks you to come fasting and to allow 4 to 5 hours for the tests and the consultation that follows them.

When the result comes back

Most results are ready within 24 hours of the sample reaching the laboratory. Some are ready the same day.

A text message goes to your registered mobile number when a report is released. You can then view or download it on the hospital website or the mobile app using the user ID and password you were given at registration, and collect a printed copy whenever it suits you. The doctor who ordered the test sees the same report in your electronic record, so you do not have to carry it to your next appointment.

Ask at the counter for the expected time for your particular tests. The staff there are told to give you that before you leave.

Why a report can take longer than a day

The 24 hours is counted from the moment the sample reaches the laboratory, not from the moment the doctor ordered the test. For an admitted patient the sample is taken in the room and then carried down, so the clock starts later than the family expects.

Some tests take longer than a day because of what they are, not because anything has gone wrong. A culture has to grow before anyone can read it, and growing bacteria takes days. Tissue from a biopsy has to be processed and stained before a pathologist can look at it under the microscope. A test that needs a repeat or a confirmation adds a day.

If a result is needed urgently, the treating doctor can ask the laboratory for urgent reporting. That request has to come from the doctor, so ask the doctor or the nurse in charge rather than the laboratory.

If you are admitted

You do not go anywhere. The doctor or the duty medical officer enters the order in the system, and the sample is taken in your room. Patients in intensive care have samples taken at the bedside.

Reports go straight into the electronic record, so the treating doctor sees them without waiting for a printed copy. Your own copies are in the file handed over at discharge.

Home sample collection

The laboratory collects samples at home for patients who cannot come in. How to arrange it, which parts of Hyderabad are covered and what it costs are not published here, so ring the hospital and ask before you plan around it.

What it costs

Prices for single tests are not published on this site. The billing desk will tell you the cost before the sample is taken, and you can ask for it on the phone beforehand.

Health check packages are priced and listed on the health check packages page. A package is a fixed set of tests at one price and is usually cheaper than the same tests ordered one by one.

If you are admitted and using insurance, the Guest Relation Executive collects the documents and sends them for pre-authorisation, and tells you where that has got to. Whether an outpatient can use a cashless insurance facility for laboratory tests is worth asking on the phone first.

What the laboratory tests

In plain terms, most slips fall into a few groups. You do not need to work out which.

• Blood counts, anaemia and clotting
• Blood sugar, HbA1c and diabetes monitoring
• Kidney and liver function, and salts in the blood
• Thyroid and other hormones
• Cholesterol and other fats
• Urine tests
• Infection tests, including cultures to find which bacteria and which antibiotic works
• Blood group and cross matching
• Tissue and biopsy reporting, including for cancer
• Molecular and genetic tests, including PCR

Who checks the laboratory's work

Samples carry a bar code from the moment the tube is filled, and the analysers report into the laboratory information system, so the result stays tied to the person it came from.

The laboratory is run to NABL norms, the national standard for testing laboratories, covering safety, infrastructure, backups, waste handling and recovery from a breakdown. NABL is listed among the hospital's accreditations. Which parts of the laboratory the certificate covers is not published here.