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The offer was made to about 300,000 Granite Staters over the age of 65 or those who had qualifying medical conditions. Yet some people had trouble signing up and couldn’t get through to a live person. Others were unsure if they qualified to get a shot.
“Did anyone really think through the effect this would have on physicians’ offices?” said Debborah Kaitz, the office manager at Pembroke Wellness Center.
When the state was crafting their vaccination plan, she said it seemed like they had a specific kind of practice in mind— ones with modern glass architecture, armies of administrators to answer phones, and a team public relations specialists to advertise exactly how vaccination sign-ups were going to work.
Pembroke Wellness Center, a quaint brick building just outside of Concord, employs one doctor, one nurse practitioner and four ancillary staff members who attend to patients in the waiting room, and handle administrative and billing work.
The practice had already been overrun with calls since the beginning of the pandemic. People called so often with questions about quarantining, isolation and exposure to COVID-19, the practice considered adding a message to their answering system that begged people to read the Department of Health website before continuing their call.
When Kaitz saw that primary care providers were going to be a part of the vaccination effort, she felt like the flood gates were about to open.
“No one asked,” she said. “It was just ‘hey, call your doctor’s office.’ I’m not sure even the general public understands what doctors’ offices are going through.”
On the first day of vaccine registration last Friday, one staff member was on vacation, leaving three people to manage more than 40 vaccine-related calls in addition to all of their other duties.
“I’m not sure you realize how tasked my staff already is,” she said. “Answering all these phone calls, cleaning every room after someone leaves, cleaning bathrooms, all of this stuff and now you’re saying, ‘hey, just call your doctor’s office’.”
Many of Kaitz’ other responsibilities, like billing, were forced to the back burner while she handled vaccine questions. She said she apologized to her patients but people have still called, frustrated by the delays.
Crossroads Medicine and Pediatrics, an independent practice in Concord with just one doctor, doesn’t have anyone who’s explicitly responsible for answering the phones.
“Typically, people leave messages and then we go from there,” said Rob Loeser, the clinical coordinator at the practice. “We don’t have that sort of staffing where someone can just answer the phone and route calls and so on and so forth.”
To deal with the increased call volume, the practice was forced to reassign a medical assistant, who would normally guide patients into rooms, to desk duty.
“Part of the problem is the public and patients of ours, not really knowing what’s going to happen and then they call us thinking we’re basically the encyclopedia of health and COVID-19,” he said.
Kaitz brought her concerns to a virtual meeting with the Department of Health last week, a day before vaccination appointments were set to open for everyone 65 and older.
Ben Chan, the state epidemiologist, said he understood the concern but it was hard to see a way around having health providers verify medical conditions that would qualify residents for the vaccine.
“We’ve already seen people try to game the system and jump in line,” Chan said. “We absolutely understand this creates an added burden on healthcare providers
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