Is STDcheck.com a scam?

No, it’s not.

STDcheck.com has been around for a long time. It’s a very successful business with a strong reputation.

They’re fast.
They’re convenient.
They generally have positive reviews.
Their customer experience, by most accounts, is solid.

You can walk into Quest Diagnostics or Labcorp, have your samples collected by trained professionals using FDA-approved materials, and get results quickly.

That’s real healthcare infrastructure.
And that matters.

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But there’s something just as important that’s also true:

Their testing is incomplete.

And it’s not presented that way.

That misunderstanding is why Shameless Care exists.

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Let’s fix the biggest lie first:

There is no such thing as a complete STI testing panel.

Not theirs.
Not ours.
Not anyone’s.

The phrase shouldn’t exist.

Even our panel at Shameless Care includes 14 infections and anatomical sites, and it’s still not complete. For example, we do not include anal Mycoplasma genitalium.

In fact, no testing platform includes that.

Every STI test leaves something out.

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So this is not:

“STDcheck isn’t complete, but we are.”

It’s this:

No one is complete. The only question is whether that’s explained to you.

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How STDcheck.com actually works

STDcheck.com is a platform.

You order your test through them, and they send you to a local Quest Diagnostics or Labcorp location.

There, a healthcare professional:

• Draws your blood
• Collects a urine sample

That part is legitimate.
That part works well.

And it’s fast.

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The problem no one explains clearly:

Those collection sites do not routinely collect oral or anal swabs.

And that matters more than people realize.

Because those sites are critical for detecting gonorrhea and chlamydia.

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So when STDcheck says you are being tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia…

What’s not clearly explained is that this is genital-only testing.

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And genital-only testing will miss many, and possibly most, cases.

I don’t say that lightly.

The data is crystal clear.

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The data.

Across multiple peer-reviewed multisite screening studies comparing oral versus genital gonorrhea, oral infections are more common:

• Kent et al: Oral 9.2% vs Genital 6.0%¹
• Harrison et al: Oral 2.0% vs Genital 1.2%²
• Assaf et al: Oral 5.63% vs Genital 2.72%³
• Menza et al: Oral 2.7 vs Genital 1.7 (per 100 person-years) ⁴

Different populations. Different study designs.

Same conclusion:

Oral gonorrhea is more common than genital gonorrhea.

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What that means in real life:

If you don’t test the throat:

You test negative.
You think you’re fine.
You move on.

But the infection may still be there.

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I know this because it happened to me.

I tested negative on a genital-only platform.

I still had gonorrhea.

And I spread it.

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That’s why I built Shameless Care.

This is not theoretical.

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What our data shows

If our testing mirrored theirs, we would rarely have a positive case at all, excluding HSV.

Our three most common infections are:

• Oral gonorrhea
• Mycoplasma genitalium
• Trichomonas

Oral gonorrhea would not be detected in a genital-only testing model.

Mycoplasma genitalium and Trichomonas are only identified if someone chooses to pay extra to add them.

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Now, their patients are their patients, and our patients are our patients.

I’m not going to pretend those populations are identical or try to project our exact numbers onto their platform.

But the mechanism is simple:

If you don’t test a site, you don’t detect infections at that site.

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The pricing trap people don’t see

STDcheck is often chosen because it appears cheaper.

I get it.

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But there is no “starter” STI test.
There is no baseline.

There is only what you test for… and what you don’t.

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After you purchase their panel, you are prompted to add:

• Mycoplasma genitalium
• Trichomonas

You should add them.

They are common.
They matter.
They should be included.

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But once you do:

You are now paying as much as you would at Shameless Care.

And you still do not have:

• Oral gonorrhea testing
• Oral chlamydia testing
• Rectal gonorrhea testing
• Rectal chlamydia testing

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You cannot upgrade your way into a complete answer.

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The physician piece

If you test positive, STDcheck.com charges about $95 to speak with a provider.

That’s not a scam.

It’s a business model.

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We made a different choice.

We include a physician for every patient.

Because the moment someone tests positive is the worst time to introduce a new bill.

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So what should you do?

People seek STI testing for one reason:

To understand their infection status.

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To do that, you need to understand:

• What is being tested
• What is not being tested

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If I could say one thing to the team at STDcheck.com, it would be this:

Put an asterisk next to gonorrhea and chlamydia.

Explain clearly:

This is genital-only testing.
It may miss infections if you’ve had oral or anal exposure.

Help people understand what they are actually being tested for.

It would have saved me.

And it would have prevented me from spreading an infection I didn’t even know I had.

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So is STDcheck.com a scam? Absolutely not.

Hopefully now you know what their testing covers and what it doesn’t so you can make an informed decision.

1. Kent CK, et al.
   Prevalence of rectal, urethral, and pharyngeal chlamydia and gonorrhea detected in two clinical settings among men who have sex with men.
   Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2005.
   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15937765/ ↩︎
2. Harrison MA, et al.
   Extragenital gonorrhea and chlamydia positivity among women and men tested in routine clinical practice.
   Sexually Transmitted Diseases. 2023.
   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35873303/ ↩︎
3. Assaf RD, et al.
   Extragenital gonorrhea and chlamydia testing and infection among patients in a large healthcare system.
   Open Forum Infectious Diseases. 2024.
   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40360270/ ↩︎
4. Menza TW, et al.
   Incidence of pharyngeal gonorrhea is higher than urogenital gonorrhea in high-risk populations.
   Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2024.
   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40178090/ ↩︎