By Sarah Kwon, Kaiser Health News
Contributing writer
For a decade, Jennifer Crow has taken care of her parents, who have multiple sclerosis. After her father had a stroke in December, the family got serious in its conversations with a retirement community — and learned that one service it offered was the COVID-19 vaccination.
“They mentioned it like it was an amenity,” said Crow, a librarian in southern Maryland. “It was definitely appealing to me.”
As the coronavirus death toll soars and demand for the vaccines dwarfs supply, an army of hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and long-term care facilities nationwide has been tasked with getting shots into arms. Some are also using that role to attract new business — the latest reminder that health care, even amid a global pandemic, is a commercial endeavor.
“Most private sector companies distributing vaccines are motivated by the public health imperative,” said Roberta Clarke, associate professor emeritus of marketing at Boston University. “At some point, their DNA also kicks in.”
Among senior living facilities — which saw their largest drop in occupancy on record last year — some companies are marketing vaccinations to recruit residents. Sarah Ordover, owner of Assisted Living Locators Los Angeles, a referral agency, said many in her area are offering vaccines “as a sweetener” to prospective residents, sometimes if they agree to move in before a scheduled vaccination clinic.
Oakmont Senior Living, a high-end retirement community chain with 34 locations, primarily in California, has advertised “exclusive access” to the vaccines.
That pitch, though, doesn’t work on everyone.
Being able to get a vaccine wasn’t a selling point for Crow’s parents, for example. They haven’t been concerned about contracting COVID-19 — and didn’t want to lose their independence, Crow said. Ultimately, they moved in with Crow’s sister, who could arrange home care services.
Still, this marketing approach might sway others. Oakmont Senior Living, based in Irvine, reported 92 move-ins across its communities last month, a 13% increase from January 2020, noting the vaccine is “just one factor among many” in deciding to become a resident.
But some object to facilities using vaccines as a marketing tool.
“I think it’s unethical,” said Dr. Michael Carome, director of health research at consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
Facilities should, he said, provide vaccines to residents. But Carome also said he fears attaching strings to a vaccine could coerce seniors, who are particularly vulnerable and desperate for vaccines, into signing a lease. Tony Chicotel, staff attorney at California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said much the same.
“You’re thinking, ‘I’ve got to get moved in in the next week or otherwise I don’t get this shot,’” he said. “‘I don’t have time to read everything in this 38-page contract.’”
Oakmont Senior Living responded by email:
“Potential residents and their families,” the facility said, “are always provided with the information they need to be confident in a decision to choose Oakmont.”
Patti Patrizi, a retired philanthropy consultant, also disagreed that the vaccine is a marketing tool. She and her son recently chose a retirement community in Los Angeles for her ex-husband for myriad reasons unrelated to the vaccines. But they accelerated the move by two weeks to coincide with a vaccination clinic.
“Who is going to put an elderly person in a place without a vaccine?” Patrizi said. “Congregate living has been a hotbed of the virus.
“It was my insistence,” she added, “that he needs it before he can live there.”
And using vaccines to market a business isn’t new.
The 2009 H1N1 pandemic ushered in drugstore flu shots, and pharmacies have since credited flu vaccines with boosting storefront sales and prescriptions. Many offer prospective vaccine recipients coupons, gift cards or rewards points.
A few pharmacies have continued these marketing activities while rolling out coronavirus shots. CVS Pharmacy, for example, encouraged visitors to is COVID-19 information website to sign up for its rewards program. Supermarket and pharmacy chain Albertsons and its subsidiaries have a button on their vaccine information sites saying, “Transfer your prescription.”
But the pandemic isn’t business as usual, said Alison Taylor, a business ethics professor at New York University.
“This is a public health emergency,” she said.
The goal, she said, should be herd immunity — now how many customers a business can lure in.
CVS, in an email, said it had removed the reference to its rewards program from its vaccination page and patients will not earn rewards for receiving a shot at its pharmacies.
Albertsons said via email that its vaccine information pages are intended to be a one-stop resource, and information about additional services is at the very bottom of these pages.
Boston University’s Clarke doesn’t see any harm in these marketing activities.
“As long as the patient is free to say ‘no, thank you,’ and doesn’t think they’ll be penalized by not getting a vaccine,” she said, “it’s not a problem.”
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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