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Specimen Submission

How your clinic can correctly submit testing specimen to the Public Health Laboratory

General Submission Guidelines

Submit specimen and cultures to the laboratory with a completed requisition form. The requisition forms can be found below in the "forms for specimen submission" section.  Complete all fields on the form.  Any required information that is missing may lead to specimen rejection upon receipt or delays in testing.  Write clearly, as forms that are not legible can lead to misrouting of results. 

San Francisco clinicians with community health number must include CHN.

Label specimen and cultures with at least two of the following patient identifiers:

  1. Patient’s full first and last name
  2. Date of birth
  3. Medical record number

Make sure the patient identifiers on the specimen tube match those provided on the requisition form.  Write specimen collection site (e.g. urethral, pharyngeal, etc) on the tube. Submit specimen containing biohazardous material in a labeled leak-proof bag or container.

The San Francisco Public Health Laboratory does not process urine cups for chlamydia/gonorrhea, Trichomonas vaginalis, or Mycoplasma genitalium NAAT testing – urine must be aliquoted into APTIMA urine collection kits in order to be tested.

Forms for Specimen Submission

Most clinics will use the San Francisco Public Health Laboratory General Requisition Form.  You will use this form if there is not a more specific form listed below. 

If you are a clinic submitting specimen only for Covid-19, Influenza, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) testing, please use the SF Public Health Lab COVID-19 and Flu Test Requisition Form

If you are a San Francisco Health Network clinical sites submitting a specimen for chlamydia/gonorrhea or Trichomonas vaginalis TMA, please use: SFHN CT/GC/TV Requisition Form

If you are a clinic submitting specimen for only bacteriology or parasitology cultures please use: Bacteriology / Parasitology Requisition Form

Non-diagnostic General Health Assessments (NGHA) Vendor/Industry Applicants, please see following memorandum and application: CCSF-NGHA-PROGRAM NGHA-Application-2021-CCSF

 

Each of the forms above can be edited electronically and saved on a local hard drive as a pdf file for your convenience.  We strongly encourage submitters to electronically enter information into the forms to reduce the chance for errors.

Specimen Submission to CDC

To submit a specimen or culture to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through our laboratory, please complete the following form and include it with your specimen submission:

California State Laboratory Submission Forms

To submit a specimen or culture to the California State Laboratory through San Francisco Public Health Laboratory, please complete the following form and include it with your specimen submission: