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One Medical, a San Francisco-based healthcare start-up, is the latest organization to be called upon for unethical practices in distributing still very limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccine – including allegedly donating vaccines to friends and family of company executives, ineligible patients in their twenties. and 30 years old, and support staff not dealing with patients.
It was inevitable that as we closed out the first year of this pandemic in America with not enough vaccines for everyone, there would be plenty of shadowy stories among the privileged cut off in line to receive the vaccine. The latest comes from an NPR investigation into One Medical, where internal communications leaks appear to show the company has mismanaged its vaccine allocations in a number of ways.
Doctors in California and Washington state have reportedly tried to alert colleagues to patients getting vaccines before they are eligible, fending off older and more vulnerable patients who are still waiting their turn. The Washington State Department of Health actually halted its distribution of vaccines to One Medical due to a complaint it received last month.
Additionally, as NPR reports, One Medical has made the decision to give vaccines to all of its San Francisco-based employees, regardless of their role – including, allegedly, IT staff and administrative staff working from home. Friends and family of company executives have also reportedly been allowed to cut the line, although NPR’s evidence on this appears anecdotal.
Forbes published an article two weeks ago about One Medical’s alleged vaccine distribution practices, via reports from two anonymous employees.
The company, founded in 2007 and following a trend in medical concierge services, allows members to access quick in-person and telemedicine appointments for an annual fee of $ 199, and this past year it also gave members sometimes easier access to COVID testing than is widely available. in certain places. The company went public in 2020 at $ 14 a share, and the stock has since climbed to $ 53, giving it a valuation of around $ 6 billion.
Unethical vaccine distribution reports have surfaced for more than a month. A notable story about the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos administering early vaccines to teachers in the local school district produced an odd story, as Mercury News reported this week, in which the hospital quietly arranged vaccines in return due to work done by teachers to raise money for the meal program to feed hospital staff last year.
During the first two weeks of January, according to NPR, One Medical administered vaccines via appointments on its website without asking a question about a patient’s eligibility – the question about a patient’s eligibility didn’t was added to the dating portal only on January 14. a company employee reportedly circulated a directive telling staff that it was not their job to “monitor” patient eligibility.
“Why are young patients with no health issues, on a trial membership … allowed to book and receive a covid vaccine while healthcare workers are on the waiting list?” a medical professional asked in an email leaked by NPR. “I just saw two dates for so and so.”
A Washington state doctor reportedly sent a similar email saying they “had two [patients] today, both in their 20-30 years without risk factors and are tech workers who have received their covidus shots. One was through us. “
It is estimated that 12,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered to date at One Medical in San Francisco County. The San Francisco Department of Public Health released a curious statement to NPR saying One Medical was “primarily engaged in providing vaccines to home support services … and healthcare workers,” in other words , to no general patient population. “SF DPH expects all of its vaccine supplier partners to follow the state and SF DPH immunization eligibility guidelines,” the department said.
One Medical has issued statements refuting NPR’s reports, claiming it never “knowingly” distributed a vaccine to anyone who was not eligible.
Chief Medical Officer Andrew Diamond said in a statement: “There has never been a directive saying ‘do not check’ … that would be against our principles.” But when NPR reporters showed they had internal communications suggesting otherwise, he replied, “This is clearly not the directive, nor the directive’s intention. We have been much clearer since then. “
“We are doing absolutely everything in our power to vaccinate as many eligible people as possible,” Diamond continued, accusing the “fog of war” and the various “conflicting jurisdictional orientations and deep public concerns” of possible errors. in verifying eligibility.
So right now it’s late February and vaccine stocks are tight across California. Imagine the tsunami of stories that lie ahead as these next eligibility phases create even more ways to rig her eligibility – including the phase that begins March 15 in which it is up to doctors to decide whether the condition under- existing patient is eligible.
Photo courtesy of One Medical
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