HPV self-collection: A Q&A with Dr. Swenson
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Bringing it home: How the first at-home HPV self-collection device in the United States brings us closer to a world without cervical cancer
A Q&A with Dr. Liz Swenson
A little over a year ago, Teal Health launched the first FDA-authorized at-home self-collection device for cervical cancer screening in the United States. Now available in all 50 states, the Teal Wand gives patients a new screening option by providing an alternative to the speculum with a telemedicine appointment and a simple kit completed at home.
The timing is significant. As cervical cancer screening guidelines evolve and insurance coverage expands, at-home self-collection is poised to become a more widely available option. In Teal Health's clinical study, 94% of participants said they preferred self-collection over a speculum-based screening experience.
"The Teal Health system is much more than a testing kit," said Liz Swenson, M.D., Teal Health's medical director and a board-certified OB-GYN. "We support our patients." In this Q&A, Swenson discusses how Teal Health supports patients and clinicians — and why she believes self-collection is helping expand access to cervical cancer screening.
What inspired you to work for Teal Health?
When I met, Kara Egan our CEO and co-founder, and learned about the Teal Wand, I immediately thought, “Wow, this is an incredibly innovative product.” The Teal team was small, impactful and dedicated to Kara’s mission of closing gaps in cervical cancer screening. It was an easy decision to step into a role where I could focus on Teal and this work.
What inspired you to become an OB-GYN?
I liked the variety in the day-to-day work, and I appreciated the mentorship in the OB-GYN department at the University of Iowa, where I went to med school. But what really sealed my decision to become an OB-GYN was a two-month elective at Port Vila Central Hospital in Vanuatu, a small island nation in the South Pacific.
What was it like to be a med student in the South Pacific?
It was amazing. I experienced a level of dedication to women's health I'd never witnessed before. We worked with midwives and delivered babies without the typical first-world resources. To hear a baby's heart rate, we used an old-fashioned horn held against patients' bellies. I also worked in a Pap smear clinic where they tracked test results on index cards and sent smears to Australia for processing.
What’s your experience with cervical cancer and HPV screening?
As a generalist, cervical cancer screenings and colposcopy have always been a central part of my work. The screening guidelines have changed so much since I started my training. I still recall using hairspray in some lower–resourced clinics to fix pap smears, and I remember when we started triaging Paps with HPV tests, then co-testing, then genotype testing for 16/18. Now primary HPV screening is the preferred way, and at-home self-collection is an option.
Tell us about the Teal Health medical team.
We’re an all-virtual women’s health practice that educates and counsels patients, communicates results and connects patients to follow-up care when they need it.
Can you tell us how the process works?
On our website, patients register and sign up. Prescriptions are managed through our telemedicine practice or can be sent here directly from a patient’s doctor. We determine patient eligibility for self-collection according to guidelines. If eligible, patients are prescribed the kit, which is sent to their home.
The kit arrives with a pre-labeled mailer. After a patient collects their own sample, they mail it directly to the lab via the US Postal Service. We’re currently processing samples at one lab in San Antonio, Texas, the Center for Disease Detection, a subsidiary of LabCorp. I anticipate we’ll expand to more than one lab as we grow, but so far it’s been working out well.
At the lab, the sample is placed in a solution and processed in the same manner as a clinician-collected sample, using the Roche HPV test and laboratory instrument. The test isn’t new. It’s just a new way to collect the sample.
If the patient screens HPV positive, we provide additional education and navigation. We inform patients of results and encourage a virtual follow-up visit for counseling and referral navigation. About 90% of our patients take this visit. They’re referred to in-person care for either a Pap test or colposcopy, depending on the guidelines and their HPV genotype.
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How do you help patients when they receive test results?
We provide a continuity of conversation that really helps. Our follow-up visit and referral matching expedite the in-person visit. Digital reminders encourage patients to complete the in-person visit, and we follow up again to make sure it happens and request results. Our results so far are really encouraging. Most of our patients complete the follow-up visit within six months, which is timely given the wait times. Sometimes there are three- to four-month wait times for appointments. This happens all over the country.
Sounds like you focus on the patient experience.
We've worked hard to hone our processes and give patients a great experience — not just a good interaction with their clinician during a virtual visit, but from start to finish. We've even developed a trauma-informed directory for our providers, and we add to it all the time because so many patients need specialized care when they need to be seen in person.
The Teal Wand is more than a test. We provide a lot of support for our patients.
We’ve heard your team is growing.
Yes, we’re in the midst of wrapping up a hiring phase. At the moment, we have about a dozen practitioners, a mix of nurse practitioners and MDs, and we’ll double in size in the next few months. One factor that’s contributing is the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s cervical cancer screening guidelines released in January, which recommend that insurance cover FDA-approved self-collection as part of cervical cancer screening. We’re hoping to see full insurance coverage of self-collection by January 2027, and we’re anticipating a bump in the volume of people who want to use the Teal Wand, so we’re building up our practice.
How does self-collection reduce barriers to access?
A significant number of our patients have never been screened because they’ve been unwilling to take that first step in an in-person setting. Collecting a sample at home with the Teal Wand removes obstacles that prevent them from screening, whether it’s worrying about pain or discomfort, a history of trauma or living in a rural area. Many patients feel like they can’t take time off work, or they prioritize everyone else’s health before their own.
Is it true that many of your patients come from underserved communities?
When we looked at data from our first cohort of 2,800 patients, we found that 16% were from rural ZIP codes. About 10% lived in ZIP codes considered high-poverty areas.
What else are you learning about your patients?
Our biggest cohort right now is in their 40s and 50s. Otherwise, it's younger people who've never been screened or don't like the speculum. I've also seen people who weren't going to the OB-GYN for screening, even though they saw their primary care doctors regularly. Other patients have told me they screened with us because they got bumped several months down the road when trying to make appointments with their clinicians. They said, "Forget it." We're able to reach those patients. They want reassurance, and we give them an option.
Are you tracking patient data?
Yes. We’ve analyzed implementation data that covers our first nine months and our first few thousand patients. It looks at characteristics of our patients, who had positive tests and who had follow-up visits, the reasons why people choose to screen with the Teal Wand, their last date of screening, the result and whether or not they’ve had the HPV vaccine. We’ll continue to track that data.
How would a provider access the Teal wand for HPV testing/cervical cancer screening?
Providers can share a referral code to our website, and we share the results. We’re working toward a solution to allow clinicians to prescribe the Wand, and we’re working with healthcare institutions to incorporate Teal into their screening workflows.
What would you say to OB-GYNs who are uncomfortable with self-collection?
Self-collection doesn’t replace the complete gynecological visit or in-person visits. It’s still important for patients to see their provider. However, it can be helpful to offer self collection to augment a physician's care. Accepting self-collection really comes down to being familiar with the studies that the guidelines are based on. Clinicians could start with the Athena trial to learn more about primary HPV testing. I just saw a study from Kaiser Washington that showed that implementing self-collection at home was well-received by patients.
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What do you hear from clinicians about your product?
Most are very open to the concept of self-collection, but primary HPV screening or clinical self-collection are often not an option in their practices. It can take time to get familiar and comfortable with this way of screening.
What role do healthcare providers play in the journey toward cervical cancer elimination?
A huge one. We're on the front lines. It's our responsibility to encourage patients to get vaccinated and screened and to educate them on changes in the guidelines. In the busy world of medicine, clinicians don't have a lot of time, and it can be difficult to read all these things in your spare time. But I think that if doctors did, they’d feel confident in the concept. Patients have been waiting for something like this. Self-collection knocks down many barriers to access. It makes reaching the World Health Organization’s goal to eliminate cervical cancer by 2030 possible.
What advice do you have for clinicians who are new to self-collection and at-home screening?
Listen to your patients and give them choices. Understand the science of primary HPV screening. I’ve learned from speaking with thousands of patients that most prefer an alternative way to screen. So find out how it could work in your system. If systems start accepting self-collection, patients will have more access to screening. And more access to screening means more people who’ll never have to face a diagnosis of cervical cancer.
You can request information and find webinars at Teal Health’s website
Liz Swenson, M.D., is a board-certified OB-GYN who has been providing care to women for more than 20 years. She has learned that women are genuinely interested in their own health and want to understand the science behind their medical conditions. Originally from Iowa, she completed her medical training in Northern California, where she still lives with her husband and two daughters. She has worked in a busy multispecialty practice in Palo Alto and has taught OBGYN residents as an adjunct clinical faculty member of Stanford University. Now, with a focus on helping all women have choices and access to the gynecological care they need, she uses her clinical experience to help improve the lives and longevity of Teal patients.
References:
McDowell, Sandy. “New Cervical Cancer Screening Guideline Aims to Improve Accessibility,” cancer.org, Available at: . https://www.cancer.org/research/acs-research-news/new-cervical-cancer-screening-guidelines-include-self-collection-for-hpv.html [Accessed August 2026]
Fitzpatrick MB, Behrens CM, Hibler K, et al. “Clinical Validation of a Vaginal Cervical Cancer Screening Self-Collection Method for At-Home Use: A Nonrandomized Clinical Trial.” JAMA Network Open. 2025. Available at: . https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2834245 [Accessed August 2026]
Cantor AG, Nelson HD, Pappas M, Blackie K. Cervical Cancer Screening: “Women's Preventive Services Initiative Evidence Review Update.” Women's Preventive Services Initiative; May 5, 2025. Available at: https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/about/cervical-cancer-screening-update.pdf [Accessed August 2026]
Wright TC, Stoler MH, Behrens CM, Sharma A, Zhang G, Wright TL. Primary cervical cancer screening with human papillomavirus: end of study results from the ATHENA study using HPV as the first-line screening test. Gynecol Oncol. 2015. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25579108/ [Accessed August 2026]
Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. “Patients respond positively to at-home cervical cancer screening.” June 26, 2026. Available at: https://divisionofresearch.kaiserpermanente.org/at-home-cervical-cancer-screening/ [Accessed August 2026]
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