Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Sutter Health claims 1B starts next week
#1
My health provider is Palo Alto Medical Foundation, which is part of Sutter Health.   I received an email from Sutter Health on Friday indicating they are expecting to begin vaccination phase 1B next week.  
Quote:We plan to make appointments available very soon through My Health Online and a dedicated phone number. Sutter will hold vaccination clinics across the Bay and Valley Areas, where you can make an appointment when you become eligible. At this time, vaccines will not be scheduled nor administered in your provider’s office. 

My Health Online is Sutter's mechanism by which patients can review their medical info, make appointments, share info with their physicians, etc.  I'm sure it gets probably 10,000 hits a day.  I'm also 99% sure it will melt down a half hour after the link comes up for this mechanism.  We see that happening across the US, and appointments for a month fill within a few hours.  It surely won't hold up in March(?) when 1C becomes available which will be comprised of 50% of their patients.  If they all try to hit the website within a few hours, something's going to break.

This also raises the question of other venues for shots.  CVS, Walgreens, and Safeway pharmacies will be opening up too, but I haven't seen info on that yet.

A news report indicates CVS & Walgreens expect to finish the LTCFs by January 25.  It also indicates that CVS is capable of administering 20-25M shots a month (I'm assuming that's if everyone is lined up all day long.)  (At a total of 400M shots, that's 16-20 months if only CVS were giving shots.)

It remains unclear to me how ANY of the vaccination sources are going to know if you are eligible, except by age.
Reply
#2
Thanks for sharing that information. I’m a patient of PAMF as well but (not surprisingly) did not receive that email, so I assume it was a targeted email for people 65+?

You raise the big question — after we move past healthcare workers and ltcfs, how do we know who qualifies?

I imagine the default plan is to involve whoever can verify the information.

When teachers qualify, I imaginine the districts will be involved.

When people only with certain co-morbidities qualify, I imagine those doses will be given out by the person’a provider (like PAMF). Pharmacies may also know what medications you take.

When Costco workers qualify, I imagine the employers will have to be involved.

There are still a lot of cracks — what if certain employers or healthcare providers are unable to facilitate this? What if someone had co-morbidities but didn’t currently have a local healthcare provider or clinic they regularly use?

I’d be okay with using the honor system if the alternative is having a lot of vaccine lying around undistributed. IE, if grocery stores had no capacity to facilitate its workers being vaccinated, I’d rather the county just run a clinic in a park where people sign a document stating they qualify, if the alternative was having doses go unused for long periods of time. I imagine this would be for just some exceptional cases.
Reply
#3
I have similar concerns. How does your health provider know if you are an essential worker; how does your employer know your health situation; how does the county or even a pharmacy know either?

In today's HHS press conference, where 65+ and <65 with comorbidities was recommended for immediate eligibility, there was an indication that the comorbidities were documented by your health provider (presumably, some sort of letter).

For essential workers, I would think some other letter is necessary. I actually have such a letter from March but it doesn't say what kind of work I do (in CA, only some industries currently qualify).

HHS Secretary Azar said something to the effect of "We can tolerate having some be out of order in order to streamline the process," but he meant some 1B before the last of 1A. But I think the principle applies for essential work categories.
Reply
#4
(01-09-2021, 07:13 AM)M_T Wrote: My health provider is Palo Alto Medical Foundation, which is part of Sutter Health.   I received an email from Sutter Health on Friday indicating they are expecting to begin vaccination phase 1B next week.  
Quote:We plan to make appointments available very soon through My Health Online and a dedicated phone number. Sutter will hold vaccination clinics across the Bay and Valley Areas, where you can make an appointment when you become eligible. At this time, vaccines will not be scheduled nor administered in your provider’s office. 

My Health Online is Sutter's mechanism by which patients can review their medical info, make appointments, share info with their physicians, etc.  I'm sure it gets probably 10,000 hits a day.  I'm also 99% sure it will melt down a half hour after the link comes up for this mechanism.  We see that happening across the US, and appointments for a month fill within a few hours.  It surely won't hold up in March(?) when 1C becomes available which will be comprised of 50% of their patients.  If they all try to hit the website within a few hours, something's going to break.

This also raises the question of other venues for shots.  CVS, Walgreens, and Safeway pharmacies will be opening up too, but I haven't seen info on that yet.

A news report indicates CVS & Walgreens expect to finish the LTCFs by January 25.  It also indicates that CVS is capable of administering 20-25M shots a month (I'm assuming that's if everyone is lined up all day long.)  (At a total of 400M shots, that's 16-20 months if only CVS were giving shots.)

It remains unclear to me how ANY of the vaccination sources are going to know if you are eligible, except by age.

Sutter began making appointments earlier today for 75+. Neighbors (80+) across the street got an email letting them know they would be available.  They called at 8am and made appt for next Saturday.  My wife (66) was told she wasn’t eligible yet.

their reservation system did indeed melt down and it seemed to effect their insurance processing as well.
Reply
#5
I think it is wise to take the 75+ first. They represent about a months worth of vaccine (at least in CA), so the rest of Phase 1B Tier One is put off an average of two weeks (2M 75+ take about a month for 2M doses/month for CA; By moving them to the front, every one else in their group is delayed on average by half that time.)

The state guidelines were updated on Wednesday to include 65+ in Phase 1B Tier One. Santa Clara County vaccine info was similarly updated by Thursday morning.

Per this news report, Kaiser is taking appointments with 65+. Sutter Health, Santa Clara County Health, and El Camino Health are taking only 75+ at this time. For this county, SCC PHD indicates what are the policies at the various organizations.

There was a mass vaccination clinic at Disneyland that was taking 65+.

SCC has quit listing the number of doses they receive because the multi-county entities (Kaiser, Sutter Health, etc.) are getting a separate set of doses. How many they allocate to SCC may be unknown to the county. I've seen no indication by California as to how they are allocating doses. The US government is listing how much each state is getting. Texas is listing how many each distributor (individual pharmacies mostly) is getting.

I don't remember if I mentioned it here... One of the comments I made to the CA group taking public comments was several suggestions on how to minimize a land rush for vaccination reservations being won by those that were technologically advantaged.
Reply
#6
After two hours on the phone, my wife managed to get an appointment for my father and mother in law at Kaiser. I could not find a web-based way to sign up. He's 88, she's 87. If you're eligible at Kaiser, crack open a book, call the number, and put the phone on speakerphone. Have a family member handy in case you need to go to the bathroom. But it can be done!
Reply
#7
Yes, everything I've seen indicates Kaiser is call-in only.

Kaiser is also the only one in Santa Clara County that is taking 65+ at this time.
Reply
#8
Before the weekend was over, Kaiser dropped the 65-74yo. They now take 75+.

In a note to subscribers, they claimed to have 1.5M, or 1/4 of the California 65+ as members. If so, they should be getting something like 100K doses a week, but they claim only 20K in the latest week. Yet they also claimed that they had given vaccines to far more people than 20K per week since the vaccines came out. That's because they vaccinated their staff, but then neglected to mention how many staff they had given doses to versus how many customers. Sigh....
Reply
#9
Correction:

The Kaiser appointment made for my in-laws was made by the Kaiser app. After being on the phone for hours, she gave up. She went to the app and entered the information on the in-laws, and then was able to make the appointment. I tried the same but never got an option for a covid appointment, I assume this is so because I currently do not qualify for a vacciination.

So if you are Kaiser, use the Kaiser app, not the phone!
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)