As US rolls out new Covid vaccines, some face ‘hiccups’ getting appointments

When Danielle Campoamor’s son Samuel was only about four weeks old in late 2018, he became infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the leading cause of hospitalization in infants in the United States, and ended up in the neonatal intensive care unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

Four years later, during a so-called “tripledemic” of RSV, Covid-19 and flu, Samuel was admitted to intensive care again.

While the younger of her two sons had no chronic health problems due to the serious effects of the virus, for journalist Campoamor it was “traumatic to see him struggling to breathe.”

“It’s definitely something that stays with you and when we first had the opportunity to get the vaccine as adults, we signed up straight away, and then when it became available for my children, of course we made sure that they have been vaccinated,” said Campoamor, who lives in Brooklyn. “As soon as there is a new (Covid vaccine), we will sign up.”

Unfortunately, in recent weeks, Campoamor has been one of many people in the United States who have been unable to make an appointment to be vaccinated with the latest Covid vaccine; their appointments were canceled; or were informed by insurance companies that they would not cover the cost of the vaccination.

Health experts attribute the hurdles to the fact that this is the first time that private companies, rather than the US government, have taken over the purchase and distribution of Covid vaccine doses.

“The whole system was very centralized in a way, and now Covid-19 vaccines are being made available on the commercial market, similar to other vaccines, and because this is the first time this has happened, there have been some problems,” Jennifer said Kates, senior vice president at KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The federal government had made expenditures until the end of 2022 $30 billion for Covid vaccinesaccording to KFF.

In September of that year, the Biden administration announced that it had run out of money to cover the cost of the vaccines. Congress did not authorize additional spending to purchase and distribute Covid vaccines, meaning insurers or individuals had to pay for vaccination when federal health regulators approved a new Covid vaccine in September.

While Medicare, Medicaid And most private insurers Some people were told during the initial rollout that they would have to cover the cost of the vaccinations, Kates said.

Some insurers blamed the difficulties for this about problems with billing codes.

Kates said: “The coding required for these vaccines was available in August and so this did not come to their attention on the day the vaccines were recommended. “This too could potentially have been avoided.”

Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, said some pharmacies initially didn’t have enough vaccine supplies because they didn’t know what demand would be.

Companies “are concerned that vaccines are sitting unused on their shelves,” Rosenbaum said. “When it was clear that we were going to need a new vaccine… there was kind of a wait-and-see attitude because people were resistant to vaccines, and now you get into this vicious circle where people come in looking for the vaccine, just to find out that they can’t have it.”

Spokespeople for CVS and Walgreens, two of the largest U.S. pharmacy chains, blamed supply chain problems for canceled appointments.

“We are aware of isolated incidents at a few locations where appointments had to be rescheduled due to delivery delays.” a Walgreens spokesman told the Associated Press Last month.

Matt Blanchette, a CVS spokesman, told the media last month that “due to delivery delays from our wholesalers, some dates may be rescheduled.”

Moderna and Pfizer, makers of Covid vaccines, told the Associated Press that they had sufficient supplies and had delivered millions of doses.

On September 25, CVS notified KFF’s Kates that her vaccination appointment scheduled for the following day had been canceled. This was a problem for her because she was about to travel to a conference and then her parents, who are in their late 70s and early 80s, came to visit her in Washington DC.

Now she won’t be able to get it before they come and she will take precautions like Covid tests and masks to avoid infection.

“It was a shame that the timing wasn’t right; It was disappointing,” she said.

Still, she said, “there are bound to be challenges when moving from a public to a private system.”

Rosenbaum said: “We have such a poor public health track record in the United States… The moment the emergency was over, we forgot the fundamental lesson of vaccines, which is not to wait for private companies to do this Order stuff. Get it where it’s needed.”

A group of insurers stated in a letter Xavier Becerra, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, said late last month that the billing issues were “largely, if not completely, resolved and will not limit patient access to the vaccine.”

But parents still say they are having trouble finding the vaccine for their children, after To News reports.

Kates said she expects the Covid vaccine rollout to look similar to the flu vaccine rollout.

“It shouldn’t be like that next time, but there’s always a surprise,” she said.

Journalist Campoamor said she managed to get her sons vaccinated, but Rite-Aid canceled her vaccination appointment on September 22, saying she would have to wait a month for a new appointment. She then made an appointment with Walgreens, but that too was canceled due to the flooding in New York.

She wrote on Twitter about the canceled appointment and the flooding: “That’s okay. All is well. Completely normal. There’s nothing to see here.”