Standard Labs

AIMS is a complete and comprehensive clinic where all types of labs are drawn to better help diagnose what is wrong with a patient and what needs to be addressed and repaired.

AIMS is associated with Labcorp, SonoraQuest, Healthy Diagnostic Laboratories, and One Swab.  Depending on which lab your insurance prefers, if it prefers one, will dictate if we use Labcorp or SonoraQuest.

If you are on Medicare and have a Supplement we can run labs through Labcorp.  Insurances related to Banner employees all go through SonoraQuest.

We draw blood in our own offices, but also can set up via computer having you go to a lab draw station anywhere around the Valley. We also can set up blood draws if you are out of state.

What labs do we do via these standard labs?

*Basic Yearly Blood work—the basic yearly blood work done by AIMS physicians is more comprehensive than most MD offices:

1. Complete Blood Count—red and white blood cells and what they look like
2. Comprehensive Metabolic Panel—checks your liver, kidney, electrolytes, cholesterol and triglycerides, and glucose.
3. Serum ferritin—catches iron anemia earliest, and best indicator for if your liver is fatty or you have a genetic condition called hemochromatosis.
4. Serum GGT—catches a certain liver condition, or fatty liver.
5. Vitamin D3—will check for deficiency

 
*Other labs commonly done:

1. HgA1C—this measures where your blood sugar has been for the last three months on average.
2. Thyroid panel—this measure the functioning of your thyroid gland
3. Thyroid antibodies—this measures if you have an autoimmune disease working against your thyroid.
4. Free and Total Testosterone—this is an accurate way of measuring how much testosterone is being produce and how much testosterone is bioavailable to be actually used by body cells.
5. Methylmalonic acid—this is the best blood measurement of vitamin B12 deficiency (much better than actual serum B12).
6. Homocysteine—this is a good test to see if you have enough bioactive folic acid in your body. If this is high, which is very problematic to many different biochemical pathways in the body, we may do a follow-up genetic test to see if you have a genetic problem with producing bioactive folic acid.
7. Celiac Test—if your food allergy test came back positive for gluten, or if in your first office visit we sense this may be a problem with you, we draw for this auto-immune gastrointestinal disease.
8. NMR profile—Cholesterol is a very bad indicator for if you are actually at risk for having a cardiovascular disease develop. This panel is much more indicative of concern if it is positive.  It shows labs which have better science in relation to CVD disease.
9. Any other lab—AIMS has full lab ordering capacity to order any labs which seem pertinent to diagnosing or following a patient’s particular presentation or condition.

*Health Diagnostics Labs:  This lab does a few specific labs we feel are valuable to uncover for patients, and can be run through your insurance:

1. Omega-3/Omega-6 measurements: O-3 oils are anticholesterol, anti-triglyceride, anti-carcinogenic, anti-depression, anti-anxiety, anti-inflammatory, and promote insulin sensitivity. Most patients are deficient in Omega-3s, and may be getting in too many Omega-6 oils which are good overall, but if they are too high and the Omega 3s are too low, it can produce inflammation, insulin resistance and be pro-carcinogenic.
2. Complete CVD Panel—HDL has an extremely comprehensive cardiovascular risk blood panel which is much more helpful at analyzing a patient’s risk for CVD than any typical blood test. For patients who have a high risk of CVD this is a good panel to do to fully comprehend the areas which need the most focus to correct.

*One Swab:  This is an innovative laboratory which does bacterial analyses from different areas of the body—skin, nasal, urine.  We mostly use this lab to identify unusual skin infections or chronic nasal infections.  We can run this lab through your insurance.

*In Office Testing–It’s important for physicians to have some key in office tests to do immediate diagnoses in a few important areas:

1. Strep Testing—AIMS has in office Group A Beta Hemolytic Strep testing to diagnose strep throat.
2. Monospot—AIMS has in office mononucleosis testing to diagnose mono in patients.
3. HCG Pregnancy—AIMS has in office pregnancy testing.
4. BreathTek H.Pylori Test—This is in in office test run through your insurance. It is designed to uncover if you have a bacteria called H.Pylori living in your stomach, which may cause ulcers, dyspepsia or other stomach symptoms. This bacteria is listed as a carcinogen, so uncovering and eradicating it is medically important.

Standard labs can be very helpful at diagnosising what condition a patient has, or uncovering the etiological reasons a patient has developed a certain condition.