Updated Vaccine Q&A: When can I expect a MaineHealth appointment?

Maine’s vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is well under way, albeit at a slower pace than expected due to the limited amount of vaccines. Demand is so high, even within the small subgroup of Maine’s eligible population – 70 or older – that most are still waiting for appointments.

Here are answers to some of the many questions about the state vaccination program. The other? Email them [email protected].

I am over 70 and have been successfully registered for a vaccine with MaineHealth. However, that was weeks ago, and I heard nothing. What should I do?

Unfortunately, you have to keep waiting. And it’s unclear for how long.

Due to the extremely limited amount of vaccines, MaineHealth plans only one week before vaccination, based on how many doses are expected from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. MaineHealth officials on Wednesday declined to give an estimated waiting time for appointments for eligible Mainers who have registered due to future uncertainties.

“Because the vaccine supply is so low and unpredictable, and the … number of people signing up, we can’t give estimates at this point,” said MaineHealth spokesman John Porter.

This week, MaineHealth would receive approximately 5,300 initial doses of vaccine distributed among its hospitals in Portland, Brunswick, Biddeford, Franklin, Damariscotta and Rockland. And a portion of the shots were on the Scarborough Downs mass vaccination website that opened Wednesday and eventually allowed up to 2,000 people a day to be vaccinated – but only when the doses are at hand.

As of Wednesday, 65,000 people currently eligible were pre-registered with MaineHealth, and each day more registered. And although the majority of shots are given to Mainers 70 or older as part of Phase 1B, there are still health workers, public safety employees or COVID-19 response workers who are vaccinated within Phase 1A.

“If the federal government suddenly gives us a lot more vaccine, the waiting time will be shorter,” Porter said.

What happens if I miss my appointment? Will I lose my place in the queue?

MaineHealth will try several times in the next few days to reach a person who was not available when he was called about an available vaccination appointment, according to a regular question on the company’s website. After three failed attempts, the system will “leave a message with instructions on how to contact our appointment planning team directly.”

Appointment calls from MaineHealth come from 877-780-7545, so keep that in mind if you are not answering calls from unknown numbers, or if you have a system that attempts to block spam calls.

People who miss an appointment do not necessarily have to wait by the phone for the next call to come in.

They can dial the MaineHealth number – 877-780-7545 – and if the system recognizes the caller’s number as part of someone who needs to make an appointment, the call will be automatically sent to a scheduler. But callers must use the same number in the registration system and may not have their number on the caller ID “blocked”.

This process will only work for individuals who are currently eligible for appointments. Other calls go directly to the registration system.

I registered with MaineHealth but still want to confirm that I’m on the list. Is there a way to do that?

No, not at the moment.

“Once you register and you get the confirmation (during the registration call), you can be confident that you are on the list,” Porter said.

Why does Maine not have a centralized, global system that allows people to register and make appointments like other countries do? And is there one?

Maine and about 40 other states have chosen not to use a new system launched by the federal government because it does not provide a one-stop solution for registering, scheduling and detecting vaccinations across the state. Other states have launched their own systems, but Maine (which has the country’s oldest population and the best, at best, Internet access in many areas) has yet to do so.

As a result, every hospital network or health care system in Maine uses different systems that do not necessarily communicate with each other.

The Maine CDC is working on a direct, online registration system, as well as a centralized call center for those without computer access or who need help registering and making appointments. But it will not be available for a few weeks or maybe a month.

‘Across the entire Maine CDC, it’s probably the top priority of our entire team. “This is a situation or solution without any brakes, which we must be ready to use,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said Tuesday during his briefing.

I prefer to be vaccinated by my personal doctor, but it is a small, independent practice. When do doctor’s offices not affiliated with a hospital or healthcare network start receiving vaccine doses to administer?

This is a topic of ongoing discussion at the state level. But at this point, it’s still a while.

Nirav Shah of the Maine CDC, who was questioned about it during his briefing on Tuesday, said the priority now is to vaccinate as many people as possible each week with no doses left at the end of a clinic. Batches of the Pfizer vaccine, which require ultra-cold storage, contain more than 900 doses each, while the Moderna groups have about 100 doses, but each vial (containing 10 doses) must be used within six hours to prevent it is spoiled.

The Maine CDC has given most of these doses so far to hospitals and health networks that have been able to achieve the ‘high throughput’.

“Independent medical practices can play a role there,” Shah said. ‘But if we get 500 extra doses in the state, we have to make a choice. At the moment, our focus has been to give the doses to places we know can reach the high throughput without any doubt. If we have a much larger amount of vaccine, we look forward to supplying it to independent medical practices. But at the moment we do not know when it will be. ”

This is a source of frustration for some primary care physicians and private practitioners who insist that they have the staff and resources to quickly identify patients, plan and administer vaccinations. The Maine Medical Association also discussed smaller practices to work together to set up joint vaccination clinics that could attract larger numbers of patients.

What’s the latest expected timeline for vaccinations in Maine?

The phases below can (and will) change, depending on the dose delivery of the federal government and how effective the vaccination campaign of the state works. But here are the latest estimates:

• Phase 1A (medical professions, public safety workers, COVID-19 response personnel, long-term care homes): start in December and start from February
Phase 1B (Mainers 70 and older, followed by high-risk adults, 65- to 69-year-olds and essential workers): begins in late January and is expected to continue until April.
• Phase 1C (other critical workers not included in Phase 1B): May and June
• Phase 2 (everyone other than 16 years and older): June to summer

Where is Maine in the vaccination?

Phase 1A is being finalized and vaccinations of Mainers 70 or older are underway as part of Phase 1B. Maine’s 70-year-old population is responsible for more than 190,000 residents and the state receives only 20,000 new initial doses of vaccine per week from the federal government.

Vaccinations of people with high-risk medical conditions as well as Mainers 65 to 69 are likely to start later this winter or early spring (again, depending on the vaccine supply) after significant progress has been made with the 70s crowd. Then some “essential front-line workers” will be eligible.

Which “essential” workers can be vaccinated first?

The Maine CDC and the Mills administration have not yet made that call because they are targeting the more than 190,000 residents 70 years and older. Federal guidelines have identified teachers, day care workers, grocery store employees, postal workers, public transportation workers, and people involved in agricultural / food production as essential workers, but states have wide discretion to prioritize vaccinations.

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