All Vets Now Eligible for Covid Vaccine

With the SAVE Act (Strengthening and Amplifying Vaccination Efforts), the Department of Veterans Affairs is opening the doors to vaccinating all veterans, spouses and caregivers. This is a major step forward from the previous rules of only vaccinating certain groups of veterans and employees. The numbers of those now eligible has gone from 9 million to 33 million.

First on the list are veterans who use VA health care, veterans who never enrolled but use care and medical services in the first 12 months after separation and the caregivers for those veterans.

Under the new rules, the following will then be eligible to receive the vaccine:

• Veterans who can’t enroll in VA health care;

• Veterans who are eligible for hospital care, medical services and nursing homes abroad in the Foreign Medical Program;

• Beneficiaries who are eligible for care due to a specific disability or death of a veteran;

• Caregivers of veterans participating in the VA’s Medical Foster Home Program, Bowel and Bladder Program, HomeBased Primary Care Program or Veteran Directed Care Program;

• Spouses of veterans.

If you can’t make it to the VA and can’t find federal or state vaccination sites in your town, keep an eye out for VA-organized pop-up vaccine clinics. I recently went to an all-veterans pop-up clinic held in my town, one of eight rural locations that were opened in my state. It was impressive. The event had been widely announced on the news, on Facebook, in the newspapers. Somebody did a good job of spreading the word.

To sign up for the vaccine, whether you currently get care through VA or not, go here: www. va.gov/health-care/covid-19vaccine. Scroll down to read how you’ll be contacted when your group is eligible. You don’t want to miss the phone call, email or text message. And keep an eye on your local facility’s web page for updates.