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Here’s the rub.
Even though, from what we can tell, the heavy lifting to deliver this shot to the public has been done by the federal government, health care providers will, in all likelihood, collect a fee for the service.
While doctors cannot charge for the vaccine itself, so far the government has not yet set any limits on what health care providers can charge in administrative fees associated with giving the vaccine.
That leaves the doctors in the driver’s seat when it comes to setting a price for the administration of the shots.
One area doctor’s office we spoke with last week said that patients would pay their copay. The problem with this standard operating procedure is that except for five minutes of a nurse’s time and a little paperwork, the shot isn’t costing the doctors a thing.
The $20 co-pay that millions of Americans have grown used to paying is an opportunity for physicians to profit at a staggering level.
Doctors should assess the true cost of giving the shot and offer it at rock bottom prices. The nurses and office staff are being paid for their time and, in all honesty, everything else even remotely associated with this vaccine has already been paid for by taxpayers.
Setting the price at $5 a shot certainly wouldn’t do any harm to the doctors’ bottom line. It could be a real shot in the arm for their financially challenged patients.
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