Free COVID-19 vaccines will soon become harder to find for some

Good Samaritan Health Centers of Gwinnett in Norcross, Georgia, has just two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine left in its refrigerator. Once those doses are used up, the nonprofit fears it will have to charge patients for what was once a free vaccine.

“Once we get out of this, we can’t serve them if they can’t pay,” said Greg Lang, chief financial officer of the nonprofit that serves more than 25,000 uninsured Georgia residents. can cost over $100, plus an administrative fee.

After Covid-19 vaccines moved to the commercial market Last fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stepped in to make sure uninsured adults or those whose insurance plans didn’t fully cover the vaccine could get the shots for free. The agency’s Bridge Access program has provided about 1.5 million shots, said Dr. Georgina Peacock, director of the CDC’s Nationwide Immunization Services Division, about 27 million adults have no health insurance.

But the program ends this month, making it even harder for health centers to provide free vaccinations. The CDC announced in May that funding for the program, which clinics had said would last through December, would actually run out by the end of August. A CDC spokesman said the agency is discussing strategies to augment access to vaccines for people without insurance.

For community health clinics, uncertainty comes at an already arduous time: Covid is circulating. Updated Covid vaccines are expected to arrive in the fall, prompting more people to come to clinics to get vaccinated. And fall and winter are likely to bring up-to-date waves of cases.

Community health clinics often care for patients who are uninsured and unable to pay for vaccines out of pocket. Many of them are restaurant workers, cashiers, drivers and others who are more susceptible to infection without vaccinations and may not have the paid time off needed to stay home if they get infirmed.

The Modern York Times spoke with workers at 10 health centers across the United States who said they were trying to figure out their next steps. Some said they would seek donations or other funds to cover the cost of the shots, or try to rely on doses provided by state and local public health departments.

“We don’t have a good alternative at this point, other than trying to find the money to buy vaccines,” said Dr. Michael Stacey, medical director of LifeLong Medical Care, a health center in California. LifeLong is trying to figure out how to vaccinate people in homeless camps. “When a program like that gets abandoned, we don’t have a lot of money to do that work,” he said. “We’re already on the edge.”

Some community health centers could continue to offer the vaccine for free or on a sliding scale, said Jennifer Tolbert, director of health reform at KFF, a nonprofit focused on health policy. But fewer providers would be able to offer the vaccine for free.

Dr. John Waits, CEO of the Cahaba Medical Care Foundation in Alabama, said he worries that any cost to uninsured and underinsured patients would lower demand even more than it already is. The center already has constrained resources and is unsure how to continue to cover the cost of the shots, he said.

Sun River Health, which cares for more than 250,000 patients in Modern York state, is counting on working with the Modern York state and city health departments to at least get additional funding to purchase and distribute vaccines, said Roberta Kelly, chief nursing officer at the facility.

“This is all really coming to an end, and it’s hitting community health centers the hardest because we’re the ones who see the majority of uninsured, underinsured and underserved patients,” she said.

Dr. Roxana Cruz, chief innovation officer for the Texas Association of Community Health Centers, said she fears the state’s community health clinics will have similar trouble covering the full cost of vaccinations for patients. Those clinics served more than 1.8 million Texans in 2022. The association recently struck two purchasing agreements with vaccine manufacturers that will allow it to buy vaccines at a lower price, Dr. Cruz said. But even a lower price may be out of reach for patients if they still have to pay out-of-pocket fees, she said.

Many clinics are holding vaccination drives and school health fairs this week, which could lend a hand vaccinate more patients while costs are still covered, experts said. Children will still be able to receive free vaccines through federal programand many adults will continue to have access to free vaccines through Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance.

When Good Samaritan Health Centers of Gwinnett realized it would run out of vaccine, the organization asked the local public health department to donate the extra doses it wasn’t using. But the department refused, Mr. Lang said: They didn’t have enough to waste.