Fairfax County Health Department still working through COVID vaccination registrations from Jan. 18

Vaccinators at work at the Inova Center for Personalized Health in Merrifield.

As the difficulties in snagging a COVID-19 vaccine appointment continue, the Fairfax County Health Department has issued some information aimed at clearing up the confusion. 

All COVID vaccines are free for everyone, whether they have health insurance or not. However, people are still being asked for health insurance details when they sign up for an appointment. 

The federal government allows vaccine providers to be reimbursed for vaccine administration fees by a person’s public or private insurance company. That helps to defray costs associated with this increased service. And that is why some vaccinators are asking for insurance information – so they can collect the administrative fee. However, no one receiving the shot will be charged any out-of-pocket expenses by a vaccinator or by insurance.

The Fairfax County Health District is working with multiple partners in vaccinating the public, including pharmacies and medical providers. Each partner might have its own registration process, which could include asking people for their insurance information.

Anyone who is uninsured and is asked for their health insurance information should tell the vaccinator they don’t have it. That won’t affect their ability to be vaccinated. 

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People who receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine need a second dose three weeks later. The Moderna vaccine requires a second dose four weeks after the first dose. 

When people receive their vaccine from the Health Department, they are given a COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card, which states their name, date of birth, the manufacturer and lot number of vaccine provided, the date the vaccine was given, and the location.

In some cases, the back of the card will have the date you are eligible for your second dose. That is not an appointment date. You should be contacted by the Health Department a few days before that date with information on scheduling an appointment for the second dose.

As of Feb. 26, approximately 63 percent of the people who registered on Jan. 18, the first day people 65+ could register, have either been vaccinated or offered an appointment. According to the vaccine dashboard, over 44,000 people registered that day, making it by far the busiest day for registrations.

That number fluctuates as the Health Department staff cleans up the data. In some cases, people on the waitlist register elsewhere and ask to be removed from the queue. Other people are removed if their data is invalid, such as if they are under age 16.

“Nobody will be removed without being contacted first to verify the information was not entered in error,” the Health Department states. When staff fixes technical errors, the number of people on the waitlist could rise. That happened earlier in the week when 2,800 people were restored to the queue. 

People who registered before Jan. 18 and haven’t received an appointment should look up whether they registered correctly on the status checker. If you thought you registered but aren’t listed, call 703-324-7404 or email [email protected].

Many people are frustrated that they can’t find out exactly where they are in the queue. Appointments are generally scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis based on the date and time people registered, but Fairfax County also adheres to Virginia Department of Health guidelines on how doses should be administered.

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Roughly half of the county’s supply each week is used to vaccinate people 65 and older, and the other half is allocated for people eligible in the other categories, including individuals 16-64 with a high-risk medical condition and frontline essential workers, such as teachers, childcare staff, and public safety employees. 

As a result, the Health Department states, it is difficult to provide an exact queue number because appointments are pulled to meet those requirements, and the routine data cleanup issues also contribute to queue numbers fluctuating periodically.