Eligible for a vaccine? Here are tips from Horry experts on getting an appointment
South Carolina’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been underway for a few months, but some people have reported having trouble securing an appointment or even getting on a wait list in the first place.
South Carolina is currently in its first phase of the vaccine distribution, phase 1A. The people included in the first phase are healthcare workers, staff and residents of long-term care facilities, residents 65 and older and “mission-critical” state and local employees. Vaccine locations can be found on the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control’s website.
The Sun News contacted local key players in the vaccine dissemination for answers to some of the most common questions.
The process for scheduling an appointment and getting a vaccine differs based on the vaccine provider. What are some general tips for your site and what should people know about your process?
Gayle Resetar, Tidelands Health chief operating officer: Finding vaccine providers, I’ve heard people describe it as kind of a full-time job. You’ve got to have a number list and continue to monitor when appointments are. Even people who are scheduling fairly in advance … we’re estimating on the low side of how many vaccines and then we might open up more appointments as the week goes on. So certainly staying in touch with and keeping an eye on what providers are out there in the market that you’re in is important.
Allyson Floyd, Conway Medical Center spokesperson: It is all about the website and going to conwaymedicalcenter.com. If you’re in that eligible population of 65-plus, go on. You fill that form out, that is an appointment request form. So then that goes into a list. Our schedulers get that list that is basically a waiting list. Our schedulers get that and go through it one by one and call people on the list and make appointments.
If anybody has not requested an appointment so far, I would encourage them to go on now and do it. We had the initial huge rushes of people, the demand was huge for those appointments. It has slowed significantly. So we’re not seeing as many people on there requesting the appointment.
Michelle Dore, co-chair of McLeod Health Vaccine Committee: Outside of the two mass vaccination events we have coming up, for our other clinics we have throughout our hospital system, we do not take appointments currently. We use a voucher system, which allows us to reserve the number of doses that we’ve been given by DHEC each week. Then we hand out vouchers for walk-ins first come, first served, so that we’re able to know that we are not overutilizing any allocations that we’ve been sent.
What most people need to do for the McLeod clinic is to check our website every day. We constantly update the availability of vouchers and where we’re having clinics running during the week.
Some people have reported traveling outside of their county and even their state to secure a vaccine. What is the current guidance on that? Is there anything people should know before deciding to travel for the vaccine?
Laura Renwick, SC Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesperson: There is currently no residency restriction in South Carolina, although DHEC does recommend you try to get your second shot at the same place where you got your first shot. Non-permanent residents who are living in South Carolina at the time they are eligible to receive vaccine can be vaccinated here, just as South Carolinians staying in another state may receive their vaccine there.
Resetar: I think what people have got to be prepared for is that if you travel to another state to get your first dose, you need to be prepared to travel to that same state to get your second dose. I’m just not sure people fully understand that because if you ask the CDC or any regional government, you’re permitted to get your vaccine in another place.
The problem is in South Carolina, we haven’t been allocated any additional dosage to give someone second doses that we didn’t do their first. So traveling is certainly okay. But if people do that they should be prepared to do the second dose in the same place.
Floyd: DHEC has numerous times said there are no residency requirements for any vaccine for the state of South Carolina. So we follow their guidelines. We do have snowbirds down here who are here, you know, their permanent address is New York. But they live here six months out of the year. So yeah, we don’t issue any residence requirements, following the DHEC’s guidelines.
Dore: That is not preferred, because states are given allocation based on their population. That being said, it’s not a hard-and-fast rule. For instance, particularly at the coast where we have residents like the snowbirds that may live six months here at the coast and then live more up north, they’re considered part-time residents and they’re eligible to receive vaccinations. You kind of have to handle those on a case-by-case basis to understand what the situation is like.
What we look for is if you have an out-of-state driver’s license, I need some proof of residency or living like an electric bill, property tax or something that lets us know that you do have a residence in South Carolina.
If someone is on a wait list at one provider and secures a vaccine somewhere else, what are the next steps? What’s the best way to let your provider know they no longer need an appointment?
Renwick: As soon as an individual has both of their appointments scheduled, they should cancel any other scheduled appointments to free up those appointments for others needing to get their vaccines.
Resetar: Our first choice is on our website we have set up an opt-out option on the website. You can go to that and click a link and let us know, and that’s the easiest way. We’re sending weekly notices to our waitlist, weekly email notices and communications to them. Embedded in there is an option to click here and take yourself off the list if you’ve gotten the vaccine already. Our first choice is certainly doing it on our website and you can call Tidelands Health as well.
Floyd: Wait for us to call you, then let us know that you got a vaccine somewhere else. That voicemail obviously gets full. They are continuously checking that voicemail and going through them as quickly as they can. There might be someone with a similar name and we want to make sure we take the right person off the list. For simplicity’s sake, let us call you.
Dore: We don’t keep a list of the vouchers every day, but what they could do is they can return the voucher to us or they can give the voucher to another person who meets that phase 1A criteria.
We have seen people who have scheduled appointments with other facilities that may be several weeks to several months out, but then they’ll come here and we have vouchers available and they’re able to walk in. So we do encourage them that they need to go cancel that appointment because that’s taking up space for somebody else who may be looking. But because we use the vouchers, we don’t have the issue of the appointments. We do encourage people that if they receive their vaccine here and they have an appointment somewhere else to please cancel that appointment.
Is there any credence to using multiple devices (phones, computers, tablets, etc.) to schedule a vaccine appointment?
Renwick: We’re not aware of one advantage over the other. Different providers may have different processes for how they schedule appointments.
Resetar: I guess if you had to wait in a queue, you might get multiple devices helping you wait in a queue, that could be a strategy. Let’s say you have a Publix screen and Medical University of South Carolina, Walgreens and Tidelands Health on multiple devices and you’re waiting for an appointment to open up, maybe that would be a strategy. But in terms of going to the same site, I don’t know that it would make a difference. I do hear routinely that one day there will not be any slots available and the next day they’ll have slots available. And that could be just as simple as they got a little more vaccine than they thought they were going to get so they opened up some more appointments.
Floyd: You just go to our website, wherever you do that from. But we do ask that you only fill out that form one time. Because once you fill it out, because you provide an email address, you should get an email back immediately, pretty much immediately, saying, “Hi, you’re on the waiting list for an appointment, we will be in touch.” At least once a week, we will send out update emails and say you’re currently still on the waiting list. Please be patient with us with that type thing.
Dore: It doesn’t apply for us with a voucher system.
Is it generally quicker to go to hospitals directly or pharmacies/other vaccine distributors? Does DHEC have any guidance on this?
Renwick: We’re also not aware of one advantage over the other. Vaccine providers — whether a hospital, pharmacy or other type of provider — are offering appointments and scheduling those appointments as quickly as possible based on the amount of vaccine they have available.
Is there anything else you think people should know when they are trying to secure an appointment?
Renwick: Currently, the amount of vaccine available in South Carolina and across the country is limited, and this limits how quickly individuals can receive their vaccines. Vaccine demand significantly outweighs supply at this time. South Carolina is working to vaccinate as many people as possible as safely and quickly as possible. Those currently eligible to be vaccinated should make an appointment at a location offering appointments. You can use DHEC’s vax locator map to find the contact location for a facility near you or call DHEC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Line at 1-866-365-8110 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. seven days a week.
Resetar: Being flexible about time and day and location is probably pretty important. Pretty good guidance from the CDC and even from Dr. [Anthony] Fauci that suggests the best vaccine for you is the one that’s available to you, not looking for a particular brand because you heard this thing about this one. I would really strongly encourage people to ignore which brand is where and that’s the guidance that we’ve gotten from the CDC as well.
Floyd: Just not calling us numerous times. Don’t call the hospital going to a bunch of different extensions asking “When am I going to get my shot, when can I get my appointment?” because that ties up phone lines and if you call just leave one message, don’t leave multiple messages because that delays the process.
Just please be patient, please understand we are working as quickly as we possibly can.
Dore: I think what’s unique about the voucher system for us is it does give us a controlled way to manage walk-ins and not have to worry about scheduling appointments, and people having a no-show.
It’s been a hard thing for people to understand still being in that phase 1A and “when is the state going to open up and allow other people?” We get a lot of questions about the comorbidities and “I’m not 65 yet, but I have heart disease, I have cancer, I have this.” And unfortunately, that’s not part of the phase 1A criteria yet. So really having people understand that we are still in phase 1A until the state changes that and we’re held to that criteria. If we begin to vaccinate largely outside the 1A criteria, that could jeopardize any allocation we would get.
Editor’s note: Responses have been edited for length, clarity and style.
