The launch of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program last week is giving Americans the opportunity to be vaccinated closer to home, while giving stores the opportunity to increase profits – as long as markings and doses are available and websites work. .
The program, established under Trump’s administration, but not implemented until President Joe Biden took office, delivers doses from vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna directly to pharmacies with experience in national vaccine distribution.
“It was very easy to schedule an appointment and when we came here it was very well organized,” Ken Hewitt of Middletown, Connecticut, told NBC News on Friday, after receiving his first chance at CVS. “They registered us right at the front door.”
Jim Thompson, a 71-year-old retired director from Penfield, New York, also praised CVS customer service.
“It was done well, very well done,” said Thompson. “Especially for an older man, they were slow, patient and very kind.”
Employees helped him through the process, he said, including showing him how to scan a QR code to fill out a preliminary questionnaire and setting it up for text reminders about his second dose.
The new program has already dispatched 1 million new doses to the pharmaceutical retailer, in addition to the amount already received from eventual state destination. About 6,500 other stores have been added.
CVS, Walgreens and independent pharmacies plan to add more capacity as more doses become available. So far, demand is far outstripping supply.
Nominations are filled in 17 of the 18 states where CVS is offering vaccines, according to its website on Thursday.
Walgreens has already administered all doses of its first distribution, a spokesman said on Tuesday, and is on track to receive 180,000 doses per week.
While the launch is largely an opportunity to serve the public during a national health crisis, there is also a positive financial side.
“It’s generating additional pedestrian traffic to the store and these people come in and buy other items,” Charles Lindsey, associate professor of marketing at the University at Buffalo School of Management, told NBC News.
Investment bank Jefferies estimated that CVS’s involvement in vaccination efforts alone could yield the company about $ 1 billion in incremental gross profits next year, CNBC reported last month.
However, the high demand for vaccines and some technical flaws on the nomination sites mean that some Americans have had difficulty scheduling vaccinations.
Allison McLean, a remote worker from Grand Island, New York, said she spent an entire day trying to make appointments at Walgreens for her in-laws, but failed because there were no second-dose places available and both should be booked at the same time.
“I was on the screen most of the day, but people don’t have time to sit and wait,” she told NBC News.
Technical failures paralyzed shot candidates from Colorado to Ohio, from Florida to New Jersey. In Cleveland, Walgreens mistakenly canceled the meetings of hundreds. In Colorado, some customers were unable to schedule both appointments at the same time. Some clients who live near the state border in Massachusetts found that the CVS website only allowed them to make an appointment across state boundaries, which is not allowed. Retailers said they were working on the technical hiccups.
Obtained to comment on the flaws, CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis said in an email that vaccination appointments “were completed quickly due to the limited supply we received” and that they will open more “as soon as we get more vaccine”. Walgreens did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.