That's it. Cancelled. Not, needed to be rescheduled. Not, here is some more information about what else you might do. Just cancelled like, oh well, nevermind.
All I've been hearing for the last two flippin' months is what a doozy of a flu season it's going to be and how smart parents will get their kids vaccinated, stat, for both the seasonal and H1N1 flu. I'm all about that. Better to be safe than sorry, right? But, it seems, all of that is just a load of hyped-up rubbish. Aparently, there's no rush or panic at all, at least on the part of Mercy Medical Group. (Which, on more than one occasion in the last few years, has proven to me that it's a thoroughly worthless organization that doesn't understand the meaning of health care. If it wasn't for a couple of great doctors - my PCP and our pediatrician herself - I'd be gone to Kaiser with Hubby. Yes, to Kaiser. It's THAT BAD.)
So, this morning I called the pediatrician's office. You know, one of those WTF!? calls. I was told that they are no longer offering booster shots of the seasonal flu vaccines, period, due to a national shortage and that my daughter was already covered from the first shot anyway. Of course, I asked the million-dollar question - so, why the **ck did you need her to come in for a booster shot in the first place, then? After much stumbling around her words, the receptionist (who clearly needed better information if she was going to be on the front-lines of defense against a bunch of freaking out parents), told me that the booster shot was about protecting Daisy from the next flu season and so she may just now need to get two shots next season.
Clearly, this makes no sense, especially since everything I'm reading online tells me that babies need two shots, one month apart, for the vaccine to be effective. So, either all that is a lie we've been told in years past just to get us in for a second co-pay OR it's a lie that Daisy is protected with one shot. It's one or the other. I asked the receptionist to get the doctor or a nurse (someone who understands the medicine) to call me back to explain to me why and how Daisy is protected with, what I'm still assuming to be, 1/2 the dose.
I'm well aware that this may change nothing -a national shortage will not be averted by this explanation or my anger - but I'd at least like to have straight talk and solid information. Ya know, the "care" part of the health care equation. Honestly, I get better care for my car from my Nissan service center - they at least tell me what my car needs and when and then send me reminders and coupons to ensure I come in and take care of it. A car, for chrissakes! My car gets better service than my daughter. Sometimes I think this country is going to end up going to hell in a handbasket; the priorities are all upside down.
At the same time I was on the phone getting BS'd about the seasonal vaccine, I asked about the H1N1 flu vaccine. When we were there for seasonal-flu shot #1 last month, we were told that they didn't know when they would be getting one in and that they were not taking names for a waiting list but that they would know more at our next appointment for the booster shot. NOW, aparently, there is, after all, a waiting list. (Thanks for letting me know, folks.) BUT they still don't have the vaccine and have no idea when they'll be getting it in. Which is just bullshit (yes, I said shit on my baby blog - get over it) in my opinion because I've seen plenty of moms on FB getting themselves and their babies vaccinated.
My sister-in-law who works with lobbyists at the Capitol and who knows this kind of stuff, says the County did get some vaccines in but not enough, yet still gave some to Kaiser Permanente. My company is even hosting a flu vaccine clinic in two weeks that offers the H1N1 for a $25 fee to anyone over 9 years of age, not just at-risk groups. Aparently if you're willing to pay, your age and need is no object. (Why am I shocked?)
So, the question remains: why can't Mercy Medical Group get their act together and advocate on behalf of their patients to get their most at-risk customers - babies and kids - protected?
Again, the part that gets me is how the fear of GOD has been put into us for the last two months about how important this is, whipping parents up into a frenzy of should we or shouldn't we, and now it's all like, calm down, everything's going to be ok, we'll get it at some point and call you!
While I'm being peddled (false?) calm on one front, I'm being sold panic on the other.
All news is that January will bring around a second wave of swine-flu that will knock our socks off. Yet, Sacramento County readily admits that they only got 45% of their anticipated swine flu vaccine shipment and their goal of getting all at-risk groups vaccinated with the first shot by December 31st, may be in jeopardy. So, if we can't get Daisy vaccinated with the first shot until December, then her second shot (which she aparently does need for the H1N1) won't be until January, right in the middle of wave-of-panic-number-2.
You know, I could blame the government or the vaccine producers for this - I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around - but I don't pay the government for my health insurance. You can't have it both ways - keep out of my health care Mr. President but be to blame when it all goes wrong. So, I'm not going down that path. I do, however, pay Mercy Medical Group for my health "care" and so, what makes me the most irked, is the lack of good information from them.
And it just makes no sense.
I am 100% confident that I was not the first, nor will I be the last, person who is calling, worried, angry, and trying to figure out how best to protect their kids, their spouse, their mother or father. You would think that, instead of putting non-medical staff in charge of responding to these negative calls, and allowing frustration and misinformation to build in the process, there would be some kind of mass communication effort from the health group, out to patients, explaining to them where good and up-to-date information can be found.
I'm in communications every day and, when something goes wrong with the software at the company I work at, I don't wait for 500 different users to call me pissed off because they've been trying to access the system all day without succes - because, not only would this be a collossal waste of my time, I know it would make my customers even more frustrated. What I do is send out an email to each of them, letting them know what's going on, how we're planning to address the situation, and what they should do as a result.
Ok, so maybe they don't have everyone's email addresses. (Which is ridiculous in this day and age but likely true - I've never been asked for my email by any of my doctors.) Anyway, that's besides the point. They surely have patient phone numbers. If local politicians seem to be able to raise enough money to place automated robo-calls to my home number each month, asking for my support, why can't multi-billion dollar health organizations do the same with important information about the health of me and my family?
My suggestion, Mercy Medical Group:
- Set up a swine-flu website - a real one with updated information specific to your group and its patients, not just some place-holder with information about hand-washing that I can get from Google, just so you can say you have a swine-flu page.
- Send out a robocall to all your patients letting them know the current status of both flu vaccines, clarifying what they're doing to address that at the local level, and providing the url of the website in #1 to help them get more information.
My company sent out an email this week to say that premiums had risen 13% just in the last 12 months for our health insurance. I would hope that, with the 13% on top of all the other billions of dollars these corporations reap on the backs of sick people, they could at least handle a basic communications plan.
I guess I hope for too much.
Bottom line: none of us is currently 100% vaccinated for the seasonal OR swine flu.
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Edited to add: As soon as I posted this, our company sent out an email to say that the company swine/seasonal flu clinic had been canceled because the company that administers the vaccines did not get their shipment of the vaccine.
5 comments:
First, I was shocked to hear that Lyon had the H1N1, and then saw your update at the end. NO private company or store has the H1N1 right now. One more clarification: the (b)county (/b) did not give Kaiser the doses -- the state public health administrators did. They also are responsible for doling out the other doses to individual counties and some providers. The county may then push the vaccine to local private providers or hold public clinics -- many counties are doing both.
Fianlly, anyone who gets the seasonal flu shot the first time should get it twice, regardless of age. After that, each year, they only need one. As for H1N1, adults only need it once; but kids under 18 need two doses for reliable coverage. The second "booster" is not the second half of a dose -- it's merely a hedge to make sure your immune system responds. So Daisy is most likely ok with only one shot, but is safer with two.
Isn't this a mess?
One more thing: totally agree and love your careful differentation between who and what provides your health care! We need more reasonable people like you around...
oh god, last comment, I promise!
Kaiser lets you email all of your doctors and they are really good about answering back. It's super cool!
Thanks for the additional information SIL. Daisy's doctor called me back but I was at lunch with a friend and missed the call. She said she'll call back later; I'm interested to see what she says.
And yes, most people just go to the easiest people to blame and usually it's the government. They're like the fall-guy for everything. People want it every which way, it seems. An entity that stays out of everything but is there to blame when things go wrong.
Yes, Joss has Kaiser. I like that stuff about them - systematically they are much further ahead than most other medical groups.
I really liked Hill Physicians, however, because they had a wider variety of specialists that they can refer you to. Much less limiting than both Mercy and Kaiser. However, again, the "systematic" stuff, not so good.
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