Walk-In COVID Testing in Los Angeles: The Sameday Health Model by Felix Huettenbach
Felix Huettenbach is the German entrepreneur who co-founded Sameday Health and led it as CEO, a company whose walk-in COVID-19 testing sites in Los Angeles combined in-person sample collection with online booking and digital results. His company is a useful example of how pandemic testing was packaged for the general public, and of what that model required behind the scenes.
Sameday Health in numbers
- Founded: September 2020, with one site in Venice, Los Angeles
- Services: COVID-19 PCR tests and rapid tests
- Access model: walk-in sites, online booking, digital results
- Footprint by April 2022: 55 US locations, including 16 in Los Angeles County
- Staff by April 2022: more than 1,000 employees (company figure: 1,200)
The access question COVID-19 testing had to answer
For an individual during the pandemic, a COVID-19 test was rarely an abstract health check. It was usually tied to a decision: whether to go to work, visit family or travel. That made two things matter above all, getting tested without a long wait and receiving a result in time to act on it.
Huettenbach had first approached the need from the employer side. As Chief of Staff at Quantgene, a company that applies machine learning to early cancer detection from standard blood samples, he set up a unit offering COVID-19 testing to companies when the pandemic began. The general public, however, needed fast testing as well, and in September 2020 he co-founded Sameday Health, whose first site opened in Venice.
Three components of the model
Walk-in sites
Physical locations gave people somewhere obvious to go. A walk-in format lowered the barrier for those who needed a test on short notice and did not want to navigate a complex appointment system.
For Huettenbach, entering healthcare as an engineer-entrepreneur during COVID-19 fitted a pattern he traces back to childhood: seeking out environments where he was far from the best.
Online booking
Alongside walk-in access, people could reserve a time online. For the operator, bookings help plan staffing and spread demand across the day; for the patient, a reserved slot offers more predictability.
The booking and results system was not an off-the-shelf product. According to the company, four MIT software engineers custom-built it, connected it to local laboratories and configured it to notify customers automatically once a result came in.
Digital results
The third component was the digital delivery of results, which completed each visit. Speeds differed by test: only the priority PCR test came back in under 24 hours, so the time to a result depended on which option a customer chose.
Three speeds of testing at Sameday Health
Sameday Health offered both PCR and rapid tests. Providing both in one place let customers choose the type of test that suited their situation, while the company could use the same sites, booking system and results channel for both services.
The company described three options. A priority PCR test promised a result in under 24 hours, a rapid antigen test took about 15 minutes, and a lab PCR test came back in roughly three days, without out-of-pocket cost for insured clients.
What scaling the model required
As CEO, Huettenbach took the model from one site to 55, which placed heavy demands on operations. Huettenbach later summed up the hiring phase as "1,000 employees in 100 days". Each site needed trained staff, consistent processes and dependable reporting, because the promise of speed is only as good as the weakest location in the network.
Much of that work was invisible to customers. Staff rosters had to match booking patterns, test supplies had to reach every location, and results had to move into the digital channel promptly, whether the sample came from a PCR or a rapid test. Sixteen of the 55 sites were in Los Angeles County, where the model started.
Los Angeles also hosted some of the most visible sites. In December 2020, under his leadership, the company listed The Village at Westfield Topanga in Woodland Hills among five flagship locations in Westfield shopping centers, and in March 2021 it opened a drive-through vaccination site at Staples Center downtown, sized, according to the company, for roughly 1,000 to 2,000 people a day.
From testing to broader medical services
During his time leading Sameday Health, the broadening started early. Alongside the Staples Center launch, the company introduced an at-home Concierge Service in which licensed medical professionals tested clients at home, and in 2022 it added virtual urgent care consultations in select states. By his own account, he is passionate about making healthcare more affordable, transparent and approachable, and a remote consultation for a cold or flu removed the trip to a clinic altogether.
At Sameday Health, Huettenbach and the management team decided in early 2023 that a physician should lead the company to broaden its medical services. He stepped back that year.
The founder's later path
Huettenbach, now a founder, investor, adventurer and YouTuber based in Dubai, moved into investing and infrastructure. He is a co-founder and partner at Terranum, which develops renewable-powered data center campuses, and he argues that the multi-site, approval-dependent, downtime-sensitive nature of Sameday Health was preparation for that work.
What the example shows
The Sameday Health model built by Felix Huettenbach illustrates one way COVID-19 testing in Los Angeles was organised around the user: easy physical access, digital scheduling and digital results. It also shows that the convenience visible to customers depends on operational discipline that is far less visible, and that such discipline has to grow as fast as the network itself. His YouTube channel follows a different kind of challenge, from heli-skiing to a return to a Kung Fu monastery.
