Labs

Betterness lets you order a blood panel yourself and get the draw done at a lab near you. The results come back into your own health picture, not as a PDF you have to decode.

Labs has two tabs. "Buy Labs" is the catalogue. "Manage Labs" is everything you have ordered.

The path from start to finish:

The catalogue holds everything from a single marker to a full multi-system panel. What you see and what it costs depend on the state you are testing in, so confirm your state first.

Ways to narrow it down:

• Search by name, description or a specific biomarker. Small typos are forgiven.
• Filter by category.
• Filter by price.
• Filter by panel type, single biomarker or multi-biomarker.
• Filter by the exact biomarkers you want covered.

You can also sort. The default puts popular panels first, then multi-biomarker panels, then alphabetical. You can switch to price or to name order.

Cards carry badges that tell you what you are looking at.

• "Most Popular" marks the panels people order most.
• A biomarker count tells you how much the panel covers.
• "Includes Bio Age Score" means the panel contains the 9 biomarkers your biological age needs.

Three panels are worth knowing by name.

• Ultimate is the most comprehensive single-draw assessment in the catalogue, at more than 140 clinically validated biomarkers. Fasting is required, and it is meant for once a year. It comes in male and female versions.
• Comprehensive is a broad multi-system baseline. It is wider than an organ-specific panel such as lipids or thyroid, and more focused than Ultimate.
• Refresh is a reassessment of more than 85 biomarkers for people who already have a baseline. It mirrors the Comprehensive backbone, so the two compare directly. It is calibrated for a gap of 3 to 6 months.

Some Teams offer member pricing on labs. When yours does, the discount is quoted on the card before you add it to your cart.

Before the catalogue will show you anything, it asks where you are testing. The screen reads "Confirm where you'll be testing", because panels and prices vary by state.

After the order goes through you see a confirmation. Your receipt is emailed to you, and "Schedule Lab Visit" takes you straight to booking. You can come back to your appointment any time from "Manage Labs".

What happens next depends on the lab. For most orders you book inside Betterness. Enter your ZIP code, pick a nearby lab, and choose a date and time.

Some orders ask for a few more details first, such as your address, date of birth and gender. That is what produces the requisition the lab needs. Once it is created, your order moves on to scheduling.

Prepare for the draw:

• 72 hours before: stop supplements containing biotin, including multivitamins, B-complex, and hair, skin or nail vitamins. Keep taking prescribed medication as directed.
• 24 hours before: avoid intense exercise, alcohol, and heavy or fatty meals.
• 10 hours before: start fasting. No food and no caffeine, but keep drinking water. Eat before the fast starts.

Once booked, the confirmation screen shows your appointment details. It reminds you to arrive a few minutes early with a valid ID. You can view the lab order as a PDF, and reschedule or cancel from the visit card. Cancelling asks you for a reason.

When the lab reports your sample, the results come back into Betterness on their own. You do not have to upload anything. They appear in Health, under Biomarkers.

From there the values stop being a one-off report. Each marker keeps its history, so a second panel months later reads as a trend rather than a fresh number.

Results also sit next to the sleep, activities and meals from the same period. If your panel covered the 9 biomarkers it needs, your Bio Age Score is calculated too.

Open any marker and use "Ask Bett-i" on that screen. She can explain what it measures, what moved, and what sits around it in your data.