|
|
|
| Vaccines in the News |
|
| Media coverage about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases |
|
| Cost |
|
|
|
|
|
Doctors Slash Vaccines Due to Rising Costs |
|
| CNN |
|
| September 8, 2009 |
|
| "Parents who bring their kids
to Dr. G. Andrew McIntosh for the chicken pox vaccine are out of luck. The
family physician, who has a solo practice in Uniontown, Ohio, doesn't offer
that shot because he can't afford it. Most insurers won't sufficiently cover
the cost. 'It doesn't do me any good. I am losing money on [them],' he said.
The chicken pox vaccine runs about $115, but insurers only cover between $68
to $83 of that..." |
|
|
Cost of Immunizing Children to go up July 1st |
|
| KTVB-TV (Idaho) |
|
| June 23, 2009 |
|
| "The cost to immunize one third of
Idaho children is going to go up on July first. In a move to save money,
the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare will no longer pay for
vaccines for all children in the state. This is just another cutback on
the state level which now puts more responsibility onto Idaho families.
This change will only affect Idaho families that have health insurance.
So children who are uninsured, under insured, are on Medicaid, American
Indian or an Alaska native will see no change. The state will still
cover their vaccines. Families with insurance will now be responsible to
pay co-pays or deductibles for vaccine only visits..." |
|
|
Guest Voices: A Danger for Doctors' Bottom Line |
|
| San Antonio Express News |
|
| June 20, 2009 |
|
| "An open letter to President Obama:
I'm a pediatrician and writing to let you know, because not many people
do seem to know, that small, private, primary care doctors' offices
around the country, including mine -- where the majority of people
receive their immunizations - are being reimbursed chronically under
cost for purchase and operating expenses when we administer vaccines. If
we refuse to immunize at a loss, we put our patients at risk for disease
and risk losing our insurance contracts (and therefore our ability to
provide continuity of care) because not immunizing is bad medicine. The
success of the national immunization program depends on the consistency
with which immunizations are provided around the country, and it is in
peril of becoming "moth-eaten" and therefore ineffective in optimally
preventing disease because practitioners increasingly have to choose
between purchasing immunizations and having our offices survive..." |
|
|
Idaho Changes Vaccine Laws |
|
| KIDK CBS 3 |
|
| June 16, 2009 |
|
| "In just about two weeks, Idaho will
go from free vaccines for all to VFC-Only coverage. A VFC child is
someone who is uninsured, under-insured, on Medicaid, and Native
American or Alaskan Natives. But the July 1st change will cost those of
you with health insurance some big bucks. A visit that now costs between
14 and 30-dollars could now be up to 500. 'Vaccine is very expensive
just in the state of Idaho. I don't think people are aware of that
because we've had this universal coverage,' says Amy Gamett, nurse
manager Eastern Idaho Public Health District. And that's been the case
since 1994. Now budget cuts don't allow that..." |
|
|
Program Created for Affordable Vaccines |
|
| ABC3 News (MI) |
|
| March 20, 2009 |
|
| "As our unemployment rate creeps
higher, many are cutting back. But when it comes to your kids, the
Department of Community Health is asking you make an exception. They're
reminding families to get their children vaccinated. For those who can't
afford it, they also have a program that can help. ‘We do think that
there will be a need because we feel that more and more people are
unemployed, therefore they're going to need these vaccines, we just want
to be sure that these vaccines are available for those individuals,’
said Bob Swanson, the director for the Division of Immunization..." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial: Make Sure Kids’ Vaccines Covered |
|
| Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
|
| December 4, 2008 |
|
| "In Georgia, more than half of
children get their childhood immunizations through a family
pediatrician. But problems with a federal program designed to make
vaccinations more widely available may cause private-practice physicians
to give up providing shots to their patients, even to those who are
privately insured. A survey published in the December issue of the
medical journal Pediatrics confirms what many physicians have discovered
on their own in recent years: There are wide disparities in how
insurance companies pay for immunizations and in some cases, doctors who
provide them lose money..." |
|
|
Vaccines: Bad Business for Doctors? |
|
| Washington Post Blog: The Checkup |
|
| December 2, 2008 |
|
| "We in America seem to take the
ready availability of vaccines for granted. Every so often there's a
shortage of one vaccination or another, but for the most part we feel
confident that we and our children will have access to the shots that
protect us against a wide range of diseases, from measles to mumps to
pertussis to polio. But a pair of studies in the December issue of
Pediatrics raises the alarming notion that doctors could in fact opt out
of providing vaccinations for their privately insured patients. Why
would physicians be tempted to drop the shots? Money..." |
|
|
Doctors Rethink Costly Vaccines |
|
| Washington Post |
|
| December 1, 2008 |
|
| "About one in 10 doctors who
vaccinate privately insured children are considering dropping that
service largely because they are losing money when they do it, according
to a new survey. A second survey revealed startling differences between
what doctors pay for vaccines and what private health insurers reimburse
…The studies are the first to attach numbers to doctors' long-simmering
complaints that they are only breaking even, or even losing money, when
they give shots...Experts say there's no evidence that significant
numbers of doctors are quitting the vaccination business yet because of
financial concerns. But health officials are worried..." |
|
|
Workers Get Health Care at the Office |
|
| Wall Street Journal |
|
| November 18, 2008 |
|
| "Even as employers push a greater
share of rising medical costs on to workers, a growing number of
companies also are providing services like free check-ups, screening
exams and prescription drugs that potentially can save employees
hundreds of dollars a year. Companies say the programs also will save
them money in the long run. Although a few employers have long offered
on-site clinics, the trend is gathering steam as more companies expect
to reduce their overall health-care spending by focusing more attention
on preventing illness, including complications from such conditions as
hypertension and diabetes..." |
|
| Cost of Vaccines Puts Them Out of Reach for Many |
|
| Scripps News Service |
|
| August 27, 2008 |
|
| "Some parents are unable to vaccinate their children because the shots are too expensive and too complicated, experts say. The federal government each year buys enough vaccine to inoculate more than 10 million children and subsidizes vaccination through state Medicaid programs. But the government's cost to buy all vaccines for a child up to age 12 -- $155 in 1995 -- had grown by 2007 to $927 for a boy, and $1,214 for a girl (including the new vaccine against cervical cancer). 'The increasing cost of vaccines has raised concerns that some children are being denied access to immunization and that overall immunity in society will also suffer,' said Dr. Jerome Klein, a professor of pediatrics at Boston University, who's studied vaccine financing..." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Immunization Action Coalition • 1573 Selby Avenue • Saint Paul, MN 55104 |
|
| tel 651-647-9009 • fax 651-647-9131 |
|
| email admin@immunize.org |
|
IAC Home