Silicon Valley healthcare startup Carbon Health is offering coronavirus testing at its 9 San Francisco Bay Area clinics

• A Silicon Valley startup is offering testing for the coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19.
• Carbon Health is offering on-site testing at its nine Bay Area clinics, though it advises patients to first use an online screening tool to determine if they qualify to come in for COVID-19 testing.
• You do not have to be a Carbon Health member to get tested, nor do you need a doctor's note.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A clinic startup called Carbon Health is offering testing for the coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19, at its Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles locations, a company spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider.

Although the company offers on-site testing at its locations, it strongly encourages customers to first use a free, virtual Coronavirus Assessment Tool.

"Our online assessment tool and free virtual care screening is open to everyone located in CA," according to the spokesperson. "When a patient is assessed to require further evaluation or testing, we are able to see them in our clinics if they are in our service area or connect them with a testing facility in their area."

According to its website, the company's free Coronavirus Assessment Tool is "based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines." You do not have to be a Carbon Health patient to get tested, nor do you require a doctor's order.

The online tool asks patients to answer a series of questions that will help determine if they need further screening to address their risk of COVID-19. The tool is free and "leverages Carbon Health's technology to systematically assess patients using the latest CDC criteria," according to the website. People will need to either log into their Carbon Health account or create a new one and provide their name, gender, birthday, email address, telephone number, and a government-issued ID to use it.

After the assessment, which can take at least 3 to 6 days according to the website, Carbon Health will determine if a patient is a candidate for COVID-19 testing.

"If the provider believes the COVID-19 test is appropriate for you after your free virtual screening using the Coronavirus Assessment Tool, we will perform a physical evaluation, conduct the collection onsite, and send the specimen to either Quest or LabCorp depending on your insurance," reads the company website. You can find a full list of Carbon Health's Bay Area locations here.

The Silicon Valley startup started garnering buzz back in 2018 after merging with a Berkeley-based urgent care provider and rolling out medical clinics across the Bay Area. There are two in San Francisco: one in the Castro and one in the Financial District. The startup competes with the likes of One Medical and Forward, though it doesn't charge subscription fees and is often cheaper. One Medical and Forward are also offering testing for the virus.

Test kits for the coronavirus are in need across the country and in California - the number of confirmed cases in the state hit 740. There are 384 in the Bay Area.

Drive-through test sites for the virus have been set up by Kaiser Permanente, the Bay Area's largest healthcare provider, at a San Francisco medical center only for members who meet the CDC criteria for testing with a doctor's order.

Verily, Google's life sciences company, set up drive-through test sites at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds and the San Mateo County Event Center. Only patients that are invited can be tested at the sites, according to KPIX5. As of Tuesday, the 2 sites had completed 320 tests collectively.