In response to his “Path Out of the Pandemic COVID-19 Action Plan,” the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) sent President Biden a series of recommendations for supporting primary care practices as they work to protect their patients and communities from COVID-19.
The AAFP’s letter reaffirmed the vital role primary care physicians have played in providing counseling and vaccine administration services and urged the administration to:
- Ensure that all primary care physicians who wish to provide the COVID-19 vaccine in their practice have ready access to vaccine supplies
- Step up efforts to ensure that primary care practices are prioritized in recruitment and distribution efforts across the country, particularly in states that have not done any outreach to primary care;
- streamline registration, reporting, and other administrative requirements for primary care physicians administering the vaccine;
- Provide meaningful support to primary care physicians to continue outreach to vaccine-hesitant patients by improving payment for vaccination and developing template materials for patient outreach
- Improve information sharing between retail pharmacies, other community COVID-19 vaccine and treatment providers, and primary care.