On behalf of the Chief Medical Officer Workgroup of the Vaccine Community Connectors initiative, William Shrank, MD, MSHS, and Steve Miller, MD, MBA describes how health insurance providers have focused on collaboratively marshaling resources to support data analytics, community outreach, and member education to promote the efficient and equitable administration of Covid-19 vaccines.
- A new level of collaboration: The stress of the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted fault lines in our nation’s public health system and has encouraged a new level of public-private collaboration that has been critical to many of the key pandemic success stories of the past year. Elimination of financial barriers for testing, treatment, and prevention has simplified access to medical treatment; efforts to address the rise in health-related social needs of members have been widespread; and reinforcement of care delivery — virtually or in the home — has been consistent.
- Highlighting disparities: The Covid-19 crisis has taken an alarming and unacceptably disparate toll on communities of color. Compared to white Americans, Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic Americans are far more likely to contract and die from the disease which has resulted in disparities in Covid-19 morbidity and mortality — systemic racism, unequal treatment, mistrust, and structural inequality — will drive disparities in the distribution and uptake of Covid-19 vaccines.
- Eligibility issues: Consumer confusion about eligibility was another key challenge in vaccination. Although states have plans in place for allocating and sequencing Covid-19 vaccinations based on the recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ( ACIP), states have employed plans that varied in eligibility requirements and scheduling processes. Health insurance providers have worked closely with state governments and public health officials to educate members about local policies, support the scheduling process and engage high-priority populations.
- Problems faced in partnerships: Partnerships with those clinical outlets distributing the vaccine have been critical. Health insurers have developed new ways of collaborating with retail pharmacies and health systems, which have ranged from efforts focused on education and recruiting to deep, technical integration leveraging block scheduling and electronic access to scheduling.
- A goal to achieve: “As of late April 2021, we are shifting our outreach targeting to communities with the lowest vaccination rates, based on data shared and aggregated across payers, as we track disparities in vaccine receipt in near real-time”, said the authors.
