NORWICH – Chenango County’s $250,000 annual vaccination program is under the microscope, as officials described tentative plans this week to discontinue offering free shots to adults.
Inoculations would still be free for children under 19 through the county’s Public Health Department clinics, but adults would be charged the cost of each dose. Prices range from $47 per hepatitis or meningitis vaccine to $160 per shot for shingles.
An official estimated about 30 to 40 percent of the free vaccines given per year are administered to adults.
Changes in New York’s immunization reporting rules have driven the pending change. Public Health Director Marcus Flindt said the state previously “didn’t care” if vaccines were given to children or to adults. A new state health department software program requires counties to account for free vaccines and recipients’ ages.
“They are tightening their budget,” Flindt said. “We’ve really come to the point where we need to charge the general public, county agencies, fire department and emergency management services for their vaccinations.”
Flindt said flu and pneumonia shots would remain free to county employees. Additional vaccines required per departmental regulations would be charged to the respective department. Flindt said the county’s fire, emergency and highway departments sometimes require staff to be inoculated against tetanus or shingles, for example.
Charging for vaccinations will not be a money-maker for the department, Flindt said, as shots will be offered at cost.
Public Health Nursing Services Director Marianne Kirsch said adults regularly choose to be inoculated at public health clinics to avoid paying physicians’ office fees that are often not covered by insurance. Vaccinations would still be available at the clinics as long as patients have a prescription. “We will order them and give them with a prescription, but people will have to pay for them,” she said.
Kirsch said there was currently a waiting list for the shingles vaccine.
Because the county’s employee insurance policy doesn’t cover the cost of vaccinations other than for flu and pneumonia, and Kirsch said, “We want them to be immunized,” the cost to county employees for vaccines would be scaled back under the proposed plan.
Flindt said the department would be ready to implement the change on Aug. 1 to the general public and fire and emergency management departments, and to county employees on Jan. 1, 2009.
Members of the Health and Human Services Committee, however, recommended changing procedures on Sept. 1 instead, and also suggested implementing a sliding fee scale for all.
“I know this would be difficult to figure out, but why not a sliding scale for all?” Committee Chairman Jeffrey B. Blanchard, R-Pitcher, said.
“A sliding scale is the fairer way to do it across the board. The most needy we should help. But, many can afford it,” Supervisor Richard Schlag, D-German, said. “The question is, where are you going to draw the line?”
Both Blanchard and Supervisor Ross Iannello, unaffiliated-New Berlin, said they feared fewer seniors would be immunized.
“We’ve had harder obstacles (in committee) to look at that cost more than this,” Iannello said.
Town of Smyrna supervisor James J. Bays, who said he knew three seniors in his town who are currently suffering from shingles, said trying to accrue savings in public health and vaccinations is “not an area to be backing away from.”
“I see this as critically important. We approve bigger ticket items from time to time in this county,” he said.
Robert Briggs, R-Afton, said seniors and others on fixed income “would choose food over vaccines.”
Kirsch said the change would put up “a barrier to good health.”
“Immunization is a proven. It’s not just the cost of the vaccine, there’s long-term medical costs and suffering without them,” she said.