{"id":184655,"date":"2025-08-29T13:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/184655\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T13:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:23:09","slug":"new-covid-vaccine-restrictions-confuse-philadelphia-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/184655\/","title":{"rendered":"New COVID vaccine restrictions confuse Philadelphia patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Philadelphia-area pediatricians and family medicine providers say new federal policies for COVID-19 vaccines are leaving some of their patients confused about their future eligibility and insurance coverage for the shots.\n<\/p>\n

Federal agencies this week approved updated COVID-19 vaccines ahead of the fall season, but with limited use<\/a> in adults and children \u2014 a departure from past guidance that broadly recommended shots for everyone 6 months and older.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, everyone who gets a COVID vaccine should have it paid for by their insurance or \u2026 covered by things like Medicare and Medicaid,\u201d said Dr. Jennifer Hamilton, a family medicine practitioner. \u201cWhat that\u2019s going to be like in a month or two, I\u2019m not as sure as I\u2019d like to be.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved revised COVID-19 vaccines for seniors 65 and older as well as younger adults and children with at least one underlying condition<\/a> that increases their risk for severe infection, including asthma, obesity and lung disease.\n<\/p>\n

Health care providers say they\u2019ve been fielding calls from families and patients wondering if they\u2019ll be able to get updated shots this season, especially if they don\u2019t qualify by age or an underlying condition.\n<\/p>\n

Hamilton, who is a fellow at the American Academy of Family Physicians, said that includes at least one of her patients, a woman who is the sole caregiver for her husband with Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not listed as the medically vulnerable one, but she needs to stay healthy and she wants to make sure that she can get that COVID vaccine,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd right now, I don\u2019t have a good answer for her.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Some health care providers might be willing to give shots to people \u201coff label,\u201d or if they determine that the vaccine is still safe and beneficial, even if a patient doesn\u2019t meet the federally approved conditions.\n<\/p>\n

But people are then more likely to run into health insurance issues<\/a>, Hamilton said. Some programs and plans only cover vaccines based on federal recommendations.\n<\/p>\n

People who get COVID-19 vaccines otherwise could end up paying as much as $141 per dose<\/a>, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention private sector vaccine prices from last season.\n<\/p>\n

That won\u2019t be an option for many families, Hamilton said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cJust having them at the doctor\u2019s office doesn\u2019t count if people can\u2019t afford to receive the vaccines,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":184656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,64889,103752,151,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,2857],"class_list":{"0":"post-184655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-covid-19-vaccine","10":"tag-covid-19-vaccines","11":"tag-fda","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-vaccines"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115112273949696603","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}