The COVID-19 Vaccine

COVID-19 vaccines remain safe and effective. They prevent severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Vaccines make people more likely to have a milder and shorter illness compared to those who are unvaccinated.

Our pharmacies are administering FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are available to individuals age 6 months or older. The Johnson & Johnson vaccines are available to individuals age 18 years or older.

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The federal government is providing the vaccine free of charge to all people living in the United States, regardless of their immigration or health insurance status.

COVID-19 vaccination providers cannot:

• Charge you for the vaccine
• Charge you directly for any administration fees, copays, or coinsurance
• Deny vaccination to anyone who does not have health insurance coverage, is underinsured, or is out of network
• Charge an office visit or other fee to the recipient if the only service provided is a COVID-19 vaccination
• Require additional services in order for a person to receive a COVID-19 vaccine; however, additional healthcare services can be provided at the same time and billed as appropriate

COVID-19 vaccination providers can:

• Seek appropriate reimbursement from the recipient’s plan or program (e.g., private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid) for a vaccine administration fee. However, providers cannot charge the vaccine recipient the balance of the bill.
• Seek reimbursement for uninsured vaccine recipients from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s COVID-19 Uninsured Program External icon.

All three vaccines authorized in the United States are safe and effective. They cannot be compared because the vaccines have not been studied in head-to-head comparisons or trials. Additionally, the clinical trials for each vaccine occurred in different circumstances that may have influenced the trial outcomes like geography, points in time, and variant circulations. The FDA, CDC, and ACIP have not declared preference for one vaccine over another. The best vaccine is the first one available to you!

Depending on the area, our pharmacies will administer Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and/or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. All three vaccines are safe and effective, and there is no preference for one product over another.

You are up to date if you have completed a primary series and received the most recent booster dose recommended for you by CDC.

Our pharmacies are trained and ready to administer the COVID-19 vaccines. As doses are allocated to us, we are administering in accordance with jurisdiction-defined eligibility.

Patients with a weakened immune system are recommended to receive an additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine because they are most likely to get severely ill and are at a higher risk for prolonged infection. Our pharmacies are able to provide additional doses to eligible patients.

Booster doses of a vaccine are needed when evidence shows the vaccinated population’s immune response over time is waning or weakening. Additional doses of a vaccine are needed when evidence shows the vaccinated population’s immune response over time is insufficient.

Studies show immunocompromised people need an additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine because they don’t always build the same level of immunity the way nonimmunocompromised people do, and an additional dose promotes adequate protection.

Novavax is the first COVID-19 protein subunit vaccine that the CDC has recommended for use in the United States. It is a two-dose primary vaccine series for people age 18 years and older who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Protein subunit vaccines like Novavax contain harmless pieces (proteins) of the COVID-19 virus in addition to another ingredient called an adjuvant to help your immune system respond to the virus in the future. mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna teach our cells how to make the protein that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. This immune response produces antibodies and helps protect us from getting sick from the virus in the future.

The updated COVID-19 booster dose relies on a bivalent formulation that provides broader immune protection and demonstrated superior response to the Omicron strain. If you previously received a booster dose, you can still get the updated booster as long as you completed a primary series and it has been 2 months in between doses.