Frustration: Callers swamp new Allentown vaccine hotline
Officials in Allentown and other Pennsylvania cities are doing what they can to make up for the state’s lack of a central registration system for COVID19 vaccines.
And they’re being overrun by a confused, frustrated, vaccine-hungry public.
The Allentown Health Bureau started a hotline Wednesday. It’s for Allentown and Lehigh County seniors who have been unable to make an appointment online because they don’t have the technology or aren’t savvy with it.
Those are the only people who are supposed to call. The city was crystal clear about that when it announced the initiative. But not everyone got the message, or perhaps they just didn’t care.
The lines were jammed by people from outside the area; people who are younger; and people who have internet access but weren’t happy they couldn’t get an appointment that way.
“That’s taking up time for people who are eligible,” Health Director Vicky Kistler told me Thursday morning.
Eligible people are getting stuck on hold or getting a busy signal, while staff waste time being screamed at by callers who should not have picked up the phone in the first place.
The bureau had to limit the number of people waiting on hold to 200 to keep the system running. Callers who can’t get through have been calling other city officials including the mayor, saying the hotline isn’t working.
It is. It’s just overwhelmed.
The hotline began with four operators. As calls poured in, more were added until 10 people — a quarter of the health bureau’s 40-person staff — were taking calls.
The fact that so many people are desperate to be vaccinated and are either confused about where they should be calling or feel they have no other options, shows why the state needs to set up a central system to register people.
Officials in Allegheny County had a similar experience recently.
They set up a hotline to help seniors without internet access. Within 30 minutes, the phone lines were full. Somehow, scammers were able to intercept some calls and ask for credit card information or gift cards to make an appointment.
Kistler recognizes people are afraid of COVID-19 and frustrated they can’t get vaccinated immediately or can’t even reach a provider to try to schedule an appointment.
She is equally frustrated that the Allentown Health Bureau can’t do more.
“No matter what I am trying to do to assist people, they are not assisted,” she told me.
The state could make Kistler’s job easier by creating a central registration system — where people can call or go online to put their name on a list to be notified when a vaccination appointment is available.
Then the Allentown Health Bureau could focus on what it should be doing — giving shots, tracing contacts of infected people and performing all of its other duties that are not related to COVID-19.
Having a quarter of the staff answer phone calls isn’t productive.
Other states have set up a central system. West Virginia, which is at the head of the pack in vaccinating people, outsourced the system to a private company.
Why can’t Pennsylvania do the same? I suspect it hasn’t built its own system because it isn’t capable of pulling off something of that scale. The state doesn’t have the best track record with technology. Its unemployment compensation system still uses 1970s technology.
Gov. Tom Wolf said a few weeks ago the state could consider a central system. But state health officials have said recently that isn’t going to happen.
Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam told legislators on Feb. 3 during a House committee hearing that a centralized registration would present significant technical hurdles. She said the bigger problem is there isn’t enough vaccine available.
“There is not enough vaccine, with or without a registration system, and a registration system won’t fix that limiting factor,” Beam said, according to the Associated Press.
That’s shortsighted because there eventually will be a plentiful supply of vaccine. There’s still time to set up a process to make it easier for people to register for an appointment when it is their turn.
What’s happening now isn’t working. People are left to call or check the websites of multiple hospitals, pharmacies and clinics. That’s time consuming and often fruitless.
With the state refusing to take the lead, local officials feel compelled to do more.
Fayette County near Pittsburgh unveiled a central registration system on Feb. 8. The county’s hospitals, clinics and pharmacies have access to the registry and will call people to schedule appointments.
“We put together an operation here and a team that can grow as we continue to receive more vaccines, and for this reason we hope that this can serve as a model,” Uniontown Hospital president David Hess said at the unveiling, according to the Herald-Standard newspaper. “I’m hoping that other areas and other counties can see us as a model to move forward and make sure that we get vaccines in people as quickly as we possibly can.”
I hope so, too.
Local officials deserve credit for doing all they can to try to make the vaccine process smoother.
Allentown’s hotline is 610-890-7069. It is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and is staffed with bilingual operators.
To be clear: The only people who should call that line are those age 65 and older who live in Allentown or Lehigh County and do not have internet access or struggle to use it.
All others should try to schedule a vaccination appointment through the health bureau on its website, allentownpaclinics.schedulemeappointments.com.
St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network offer registration through their websites, too. You sign up and will be notified when you can schedule an appointment.