Quest Diagnostics

Too slow. The slowest I’ve seen among Quest Diagnostic locations around Oakland area. Looks like the person at the desk is keeping everybody held up. Looks like she’s still on training but left to work alone and the other staff didn’t give a damn. A far cry from the crew about 5 years ago. It’s a shame how it turned out. Maybe they just need to close down?

I give this place one star because they do not have any way of getting in touch with a live person at this location. The staff was friendly and efficient this time. They have a high turnover rate though so it is obvious it is a corporate conglomerate who only cares about money and not service.

Went there at 8:30 on a Saturday without an appointment. Left by 8:45 :-). Efficient!

My doctor needed blood and urine samples from me and I was sent to this location since it was closest to my house.
But DAMMNN! No one told me how hard it was to find this freaking location!!! My Google Maps was getting confused too! Eventually, I got really annoyed and asked someone that I thought was a local that lived in that surrounding area of Alameda! The local led me to a place that I didn’t know existed in Alameda! It’s pretty much in the back area of South Shore Shopping Center near Office Max!
When I finally got to the place, I notice there were tons of non English speaking people waiting to be helped. Later I found out that they didn’t make appointments and would probably be waiting there for pretty much the whole day because people with appointments were being helped first! Luckily for me, I had made an appointment ahead of time and was sent to the phlebotomist room in a reasonable time.
PRO TIP: Do yourself a favor and make an appointment online!
Brittany was my phlebotomist and she was super sweet, nice and professional, but unfortunately she caused a huge bruising on the area of my arm where she poked the needle! My arm pretty much was bruised and sore for the whole month… not cool…
Getting my urine sample was easy. Just simply pee in a cup!
I’ll probably end up here again if my doctor needs any type of bodily samples from me again.

This is by far the best Quest I have ever been to. Debra & her coworkers should be a training location for new hires. Super pleasant & very accommodating. Making sure I had plenty of water for drug test & laughed with me over me ‘pee’ hand from not hitting the cup. Yep I said it. It happens, there’s soap. Other locations I’ve had really bad experiences with customer service. Not here. Thanks Debra. They are lucky to have you as an employer!

Absolutely awful! There is no way to contact them. I came in for a standard potassium test and was told they couldn’t find my information after waiting for 10 minutes. The nurse also suggests that I was lying about ever receiving an order and insists that my doctor must not be the problem but I was. In fact, the case was that my doctor had sent it wrong and since the nurse had never seen that happen before I must be lying?! Why would someone try to get an unneeded blood test?! It was 9:30 in the morning and this lady was already angry and sour and just plain unprofessionally rude. After I printed out the right information at office max because «they didn’t have a printer» I came back and was made to sign in by the same woman and wait AGAIN, not because that was policy but because it was her break. She passed me off to someone else that thought my name was the name of my doctor because the other woman didn’t bother to actually ask me my name. When I go into the room to get my test done I see a printer sitting right inside the door A PRINTER THAT THEY PRINT MEDICAL DOCUMENTS AND PATIENT ORDERS FROM! After waiting again I finally get my 30 second test done and I had been there over an hour. This is the first review I’ve written because I was so frustrated and treated so badly that I cried when I left. Also I checked when leaving just to make sure: on the phone it says that if they do not have the physician order that you will be serviced anyway… I knew that because I had it done before that way because my past physician orders were in the system. Way to have contradicting policies online and in person as well as between each of your customer centers.

This isn’t really a review as I have not used their services. This is a heads up that as of March 1^st 2015 they no longer accept post vasectomy specimen collection. The good news is that LabCorp on 2412 Central Ave does still do the collection and is not very far away.
I will say, I am not a fan of the Quest automated phone system, it made it difficult to obtain information and I could not actually reach this specific office.

The staff here are lovely, so pleasant and so helpful. I was in and out in under 15 minutes without an appointment. They went out of their way to make sure I received excellent customer service and told me how pleased they were to see me smiling as I left. I’d definitely recommend this Quest!

I was forced to go to this office to complete a pre-​employment drug test for my new job. I tried calling their office 10 times to make an appointment but their phone system automatically disconnects if you ask to speak to some one.
I showed up Saturday morning. There are already 20 people waiting 10 minutes after they open. I stood at the reception hoping to ask a person if they had time to do a drug test. No one even stopped by the front desk, but someone did yell to sign in and sit down, so I did. I waited there for just about an hour. When I handed them my paper work they said, «No, we don’t do drug tests on Saturdays. Only Monday-​Friday.» Well wouldn’t it have been nice if this information was listed anywhere on their website or maybe if they had a working phone system, I could have called an gotten this information in 2 seconds.
I come back on Monday at 7:00 to make sure I am first in line when they open at 7:30 so I won’t be too late for work. When I sign in again another girl (with a very unpleasant and unkind attitude) says, «No. Drug test are only from 9:00 — 4:00.» I about lost a gasket. Again this is information that should have been available to me in some other way than showing up for your office and waiting. And what is the reasoning for this idiotic policy? Overall, it’s a terrible place with terrible employees and I would rather hang out at the DMV than spend a second here.
To help others who need information on pre-​employment drug tests and are unable to get anyone on the phone:
DRUG TESTS ARE ONLY AVAILABLE MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, 9:00 — 4:00

Before bringing my young teen in for a routine blood panel I checked Unilocal and was none too happy at the low reviews. But, my own experience was stellar so I wanted to get that on record.
The waiting room had several smiling patients, the paperwork was done in a snap (really short, perhaps just a signature and scanning the insurance card) and within 3 minutes we were out of the waiting room and into the phlebotomist’s office.
Backstory: My son has a history of freaking out with needles. The day before I’d coached him to look away. Still, I was worried that getting his blood drawn was going to be especially stressful compared to the «drama» of a flu shot.
The phlebotomist was this really nice low-​key man. He casually talked to my son about video games and in the blink of an eye everything was done! Might have taken a minute. My son didn’t have any drama and didn’t experience any pain. In fact he told me «Next time I’m going to look!» at the blood draw.
I waited to write this review until I got the bill and went over the results with the doctor. The bill came in a timely fashion and my insurance paid most of it. I think my final charge was maybe $ 60 or $ 70 dollars. The results also got to the doctor in a timely manner and showed that everything was dandy.
And, to top it off, this Quest lab was so convenient to get to via public transportation. The #20 bus stops mere steps away from the door of the lab.
Very happy with the experience at Quest!

I went twice to get blood work. Once for my self and regretfully a second time with my two year old daughter. It was a nightmare. The staff was rude and they were not able to find the vein so would move around the vein while it was still in her arm. I have never seen this level of incompetence. You can’t even get a stroller in their office. What a messed up place.

It would be really great if this corporate company provided a working phone number to contact someone in person at my local lab to ask one, single question. Ack!

Long queues, unfriendly staff and barely any parking. That’s Quest Diagnostics of Alameda in nutshell.

Did the research on this place, made an appointment for my mom. We were prepared for the worst but was pleasantly surprised. We were in and out in about 15 minutes. It was so easy and the people were nice. I would definitely recommend, but make sure to make an appointment. There was a man there who was complaining why is it taking 30 mind when his doctors office only takes 2 minutes… The guy probably didn’t make an appointment and felt entitled that he was better than everyone one else and didn’t have to wait in line. So sad to see the attitude of some of these older people.

After fasting for about 10 hours, I was hoping there wouldn’t be a long wait for a blood test on this Saturday morning. Arriving at 9:30, there was three people ahead of me. After checking in with receptionist, my wait was about 15 minutes before I was called in by one of the two phlebotomists.
She was nice and within 5 minutes, she was done drawing the five vials of blood and I was out of there.
Overall, it was an easy and pleasant experience. Given that I didn’t have an appointment, the total time expended of 20 minutes for the entire process was very reasonable on a Saturday morning. Waiting room was clean and modern. With their own lot, parking was very easy. For future lab work, I will consider this Quest lab again.
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They must be understaffed to give the wretched service that they give. That’s all I can say. The last draw took 1hour after waiting for 45 minutes. The place was not crowded.

Service is slow. Only 2 people working during Friday lunch hour. Parking is easy to find, the have their own parking lot. There were 4 people ahead of me and I waited about 20 mins. The people there were nice but not as enthusiastic.
Update:
Downgrade to 2 star because the lady that said my Lipids were part of the blood test. I said that’s great, when seeing the doctor, the doc said there is no lipids report. So the lady lied and should have checked before replied to me.

Very slow!!! the people who work there take their sweet little time and are super rude. i will never go there again.

Been coming here for years. Opens at 7:30a and you’ll always find people who are fasting and want to get their blood test over with before going to work, waiting in line to be first. The line often begins forming before 7:15a. One good way to avoid the line is making an appointment on-​line. Unfortunately, the first appointment is 8:30a.
The employees have always been good. However, once a phlebotomist put on her latex gloves and then adjusted the armrest for your chair. Who says that the adjustment levers were sterile? The phlebotomist claimed that she didn’t use the hand that adjusted the armrest on my arm, but if that’s true, why bother to even put on a glove on that hand? Stay alert.
Easy parking in their own lot.

This was a very surreal ordeal. Okay, so I’m not used to «background checks» and «drug tests» for potential jobs.
As I was not given a choice of which «brand» of drug testing facility for a potential job I was offered and the clock was ticking on my start date, I tried to make an appointment with the Alameda facility. It would have been over three days past the HR «deadline» for my job to get an appointment there, so I tried contacting other close facilities. Still no luck on meeting my deadline on getting that test in time for my potential job. I had no choice but to step in and tough it out waiting without an appointment and I chose the one closest to home.
When I got there on a Thursday morning, the place was PACKED and the line just to check in was almost out the door. At least I arrived early enough to get a seat although I kept shuffling around giving up my seat for the pregnant women coming in with their small children so that the kids could at least sit next to their mothers before their mom’s respective pregnancy diabetes test.
Why, oh WHY didn’t I do what the sage sweet old lady did in front of me in the check-​in line when she asked what the wait time was and they told her probably an hour and a half? I should have headed over to South Shore Center and say, browse the Fiestaware collection over at Kohl’s with her! Did I mention the place was also jam-​packed with other sweet elderly people I gave up my chair to?
I waited for two hours reading from a selection from about five yucky magazines. During that time, I heard the two completely overtaxed lab workers dicker over who got to perform my test because it had to be expedited.
When I FINALLY got to get my test, I jokingly remarked that coming from the music industry, I was in the rare minority who would probably actually pass both the drug test and background check. That did make the very tired lab technician laugh so I know it must have been a pretty good wisecrack during an obviously overwhelming day.
Is this place always this miserable? Well, since I was interviewing for a job at a place that was ultimately in the midst of being acquired by Quest Diagnostics, I guess should not have been surprised.
FYI: passed the test with flying colors and «flying colors» can be a completely different expression when one is used to working around musicians!
Giving it two stars because the workers there were trying hard but so overwhelmed and my «tester» actually laughed at my joke!