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This year’s influenza season will be unique, and we’re here to help.

We realize this year’s flu season will bring new challenges because of the COVID-19 national public health emergency. Your patients may be hesitant to get their flu vaccine, and immunization rates may be lower than past seasons. We want to help support your proactive work of encouraging our members to get their flu shot.

We’ve compiled a list of resources to help your clinic prepare for a challenging flu season. We’ll continue to add more resources when available.

Learn how standing orders can help your practice:

  •  Enable patient assessment and vaccinations at patients’ convenience and comfort level
  •  Help protect your patients and staff by decreasing transmission of illness in your practice

For more information, please visit immunize.org/standingorders.

Self-Paced Training

By providing the flu vaccine, you may be able to reduce the risk of serious flu illness and hospitalization for your patients.

The flu vaccine helps protects against multiple subtypes of the influenza virus and has been shown to reduce flu-associated hospitalizations. According to the CDC, flu vaccination prevented an estimated 58,00 flu-related hospitalizations in 2018-20191. If the flu can be determined early, anti-flu medications can help reduce the symptoms and illness days2.

  • Encourage vaccines to your patients and their accompanying family members at every visit.
  • Consider using standing orders, protocols and resources from immunize.org.
  • Help ensure safety by considering the following:
    • Offering online appointment scheduling
    •  Dedicating specific rooms for vaccine-only appointments
    • Extending hours or offering walk-in vaccination clinics
    • Setting up a drive-up immunization site
  • Leverage the CDC’s “SHARE” best practice to make a strong vaccine recommendation and provide information to help patients make informed decisions:
    • Share the reasons why the influenza vaccine is right for the patient given his or her age, health status, lifestyle, occupation and other risk factors
    • Highlight positive experiences with influenza vaccines (personal or in your practice) as appropriate
    • Address patient questions and any concerns with the influenza vaccine including side effects, safety and vaccine effectiveness
    • Remind patients that influenza vaccines protect them and their loved ones from influenza and influenza-related complications
    • Explain the potential costs of getting influenza, including serious health effects, time lost (such as missing work or family obligations) and financial costs

We're Here to Help

We appreciate your dedication to protect the health of our members by providing vaccinations. If you have any questions, please contact Provider Services at 877-842-3210. 


Footnotes:
1 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-benefits.htm
2 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/treatment/whatyoushould.htm

[Dr. Richard Migliori, Chief Medical Officer]

Dr. Richard Migliori:

As you probably already anticipate, this year’s flu season, combined with COVID-19, will be particularly challenging.

Flu shots are especially important this year to help ensure that we have the health care resources we need as COVID-19 will continue to require hospital and ICU beds throughout the flu season.

That’s why reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses, like the flu, is more important than ever.

Together, we can help improve immunization rates and proactively reduce the impact of influenza.

Thank you for protecting our members’ health by recommending and providing flu vaccinations.

[To help support the fight against the flu, visit UHCprovider.com/flu]

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