Last week I decided I could no longer put off getting my seasonal vaccinations—for flu and COVID. So I made an appointment for them both on Wednesday. I generally do not react badly to flu shots and the only COVID inoculation that bothered me was the third one in the first series, so I figured I’d be fine.
Well. It’s been
interesting.
(BACKGROUND: When
I moved back to the District They Call Columbia, I could not believe how
difficult it was to find a primary care practice. For a city that boasts three
medical schools, you’d have thought there’d be a surfeit of them, but it took
me months (and a couple of false starts) before I landed on OneMedical. A
quasi-concierge concept headquartered in San Francisco, the attraction for me
was that, for a $200 annual fee, I could be seen at any OneMed office by any
OneMed provider, get same-day appointments, spend 20 minutes with the doctor per
appointment (as opposed to the 15 minutes most insurance-driven practices) and
develop an actual relationship. The bonus was that there was an office two
blocks from my job at Metro Center. Eventually they opened offices closer to me
in the People’s Republic, so I was happy.)
I showed up for
my appointment to be told by the lab tech that “they” had put an order for the
regular flu dose. I need the high-dose vaccine and I’d specified that when I
made the appointment online.
In fact, their
portal prompted me for the high-dose version, which makes sense—I’ve been
getting this since I started with OneMedical. And it’s not rocket science—even pharmacies
twig that I get high-dose.
CVS: You’ll
want the high-dose shot.
Me: Yes.
CVS: Yeah—we don’t
have any.
Well, it got
worse. The lab tech couldn’t put in an order herself to change the dosage; the
two people associated with my care (neither of whom I’ve seen, as the person I
was seeing left the practice six months ago) were out of office—one until 8
November, the other till 1 November. The tech messaged others on the medical
team, but got no response. So she gave me the COVID booster and said she’d
contact me when they got the flu thing sorted.
It was clearly
some kind of system thing—to do with the protocols set up for dispensing
vaccines. Amazon bought OneMedical about a year ago and it occurred to me that
they might have had some of their geniuses messing with the software. But this
is just speculation.
Still, it was
annoying. Thursday morning I was just sitting down to write a nastygram asking why
it is that I could see anyone in the practice on a couple of hours’ notice, but
they couldn’t find someone to authorize the correct dose—especially since I’d
specified that when I made the appointment using their own systems—when I
saw an email in my queue saying they’d got it sorted and I could drop in at any
time to get the shot.
So I got it on
Thursday. And Friday when they sent me the “how did we do” survey email, they did
not get a good Net Promoter Score. (They also emailed to invite me to leave a
Google review. I replied, “You seriously do not want me leaving a public
review.”)
The other
interesting thing is how I reacted to the COVID vaccine. (This one was Moderna;
all the others I’ve got have been Pfizer. Dunno if this is salient.)
This was
Thursday morning. You can see how inflamed the area around the injection is.
That was tender, the shoulder joint was sore and I was achy. It was hard to
raise my arm and I couldn’t clasp hands behind my back. Also—I got completely
exhausted. Both Thursday and Friday I had to lie down in the afternoon to rest.
And it’s not like I was running marathons or anything.
The injection
area was still inflamed on Sunday, and it also itched like crazy. (The flu site is tender, but not inflamed.)
However—in the
global scheme of things, this is small potatoes. Despite the corporate
glitching and the physiological hiccups, I am now set for flu and COVID season,
and I am grateful for that. Even ifall it took two trips to get it done.
©2024 Bas Bleu
No comments:
Post a Comment