Practical guides
Fasting, costs and reimbursement, testing without a referral, choosing a provider and reading your results.
Practical guide
Fasting for a blood test
For some blood values it matters whether you have eaten shortly before the draw, for others it does not. Fasting is therefore sometimes required, but far from always. In this guide you can read what fasting means exactly, how many hours Bloodworks asks for, what you may and may not drink, which tests require fasting and which do not, and how to prepare in a practical way. You will also read what happens if it accidentally went wrong and how the Bloodworks doctor assesses a fasted result.
Relevant values: Glucose · HbA1c · Insulin · Total cholesterol
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Reading your blood results
Your blood results are full of numbers, units and reference values. It looks technical, but the structure is the same everywhere and easy to follow. In this guide you read step by step how to read your results, what an abnormal value does and does not mean, and why you should only compare a value with the reference of the laboratory that tested your blood. That way you get more out of your report.
Relevant values: Haemoglobin · Ferritin · TSH · Glucose
See what you can testPractical guide
Blood test without a referral
Would you like a blood test without a referral from your GP? You can. At Bloodworks you arrange your blood test entirely online. You choose which values you want tested, have your blood drawn at one of more than 1000 affiliated collection points across the Netherlands and receive your result, usually within 2 working days, reviewed by a registered doctor. In this guide you read exactly how it works, what it costs and what to keep in mind.
Relevant values: Vitamin B12 · Vitamin D · Ferritin · Folic Acid
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Blood tests and health insurance
Is a blood test covered by your health insurance in the Netherlands? It depends on the route. If a doctor requests the test for a medical reason, it is covered by the Dutch basic health insurance (basisverzekering), but the costs count towards your compulsory excess (eigen risico). If you choose a preventive blood test on your own initiative, you usually pay for it yourself, at a fixed price that does not touch your excess. This guide explains how coverage works in the Dutch system, what supplementary insurance sometimes covers and how to claim with your payment receipt.
Relevant values: Total cholesterol · HbA1c · Vitamin D · TSH
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Choosing a blood test provider
What is the best blood test? There is no single answer that applies to everyone. You can, however, compare blood test providers in a meaningful way, because the differences come down to a few fixed points: who reviews the result, which laboratory performs the analysis, how the blood is collected, what exactly the price includes and what happens when a value is abnormal. In this guide you read, per criterion, why it matters, which question to ask the provider and how Bloodworks approaches it. That way you compare providers on substance rather than on the first price you see, and you choose the blood test that fits your situation.
Relevant values: TSH · Vitamin D · Total cholesterol · Ferritin
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