KOAM TV 7 Joplin and Pittsburg News Weather SportsFlu shot program means many who pay for health insurance can't get the shot
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By MIKE PACHE
Seasonal flu vaccines for children are becoming hard to find at some 4-State clinics. A Seneca, Missouri mother is learning that having health insurance is preventing her daughter from receiving a flu shot.
Lori Baker would like to get her four year old daughter, Bella, a seasonal flu vaccine. But for the last two months she is finding out that they are hard to come by through the family's pediatrician.
"They tell me they just don't have it," Lori says.
She was then told to ask around local clinics to see if they carried the particular seasonal flu shot for her daughter. Lori says she found one in at the Anderson Rural Health Clinic in Anderson, Missouri.
"Their next question was 'do you have insurance?'" Lori says. "I said 'yes' and I thought 'great'. I was going to pick up my daughter early and go get this (but) I was told because I have health insurance I was not eligible to receive the vaccine."
A family practitioner at the Goodman Family Clinic, which is affiliated with the clinic in Anderson, says the reason Lori is not eligible is because clinics are given seasonal flu shots for children under a federal program called Vaccines for Children.
The only way to be eligible for the program is to be under the age of 18 and meet one of the following criteria:
"To have that vaccine sitting on a shelf somewhere and readily available, I even asked if I could make a donation or volunteer time but because of the stipulations from the government there is no way I can get it," Lori says.
The nurse practitioner at the Goodman Family Clinic says they are all out of seasonal flu shots for children under the VFC program and that the clinic has no private stock vaccines for children.
Lori says she will keep looking for clinics or doctors that have the vaccine for her daughter.
"It's going to be sad if my daughter gets sick and comes down with the flu and she's only going to have it because we pay for our health insurance."
Currently, the McDonald County Health Department is out of seasonal flu vaccines for children.
The registered nurse at the facility recommends families keep checking as many departments do not know when they will get more shipments.
