Help with Vaccines

[derbychick1218]

I'm in nursing school and I will be starting clinicals in just a few weeks. I need my vaccines. I work only 14 hours a week so I am on medicaid. I went yesterday to my primary Dr. and I couldn't get them because medicaid don't pay for them. I have to pay out of pocket.It's not included in my tuition. I'm a single mom of two teenagers and really don't have the money to shell out. Everywhere are quoting me 350-460 dollars. I live in florida. I have gone to the health department to try and get on their sliding scale, but because i have insurance they won't put me on it. I don't know what to do. I'm stressing out about this.

[student for life]

Have you tried the drug stores? Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS all offer vaccines. I was able to find most prices on their websites but I think I had to call the Rite Aid pharmacy for their prices. The issue I encountered was they needed a prescription from my doctor for everything other than the flu shot. So maybe your dr can just give you the script and you can take it to the one with the best prices. I ended up getting the vaccines I needed from the occupational health place I went to get my school physical done. Their prices were even cheaper than the drugs stores (and I didn't need a script from the dr) but they did not offer the varicella which luckily I didn't need anyway. Good luck to you!!

[derbychick1218]

i will look into that thank you very much. the only other thing i was coming up with was transferring schools to one that includes that in my tuition. didn't want to though because in algebra and micro i got C's and didn't want to take the chance of having to retake those again. especially micro i had to take that two times already.

[enuf_already]

Try your county or public health department. They do adult vaccines cheap, at least in my county/state. The pharmacy clinics still charge an arm and a leg but the public health department in your area hopefully will either do low or no cost vaccines for you. I hope you find this is the case. Good luck to you!

[SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP]

I have insurance but was able to get my vaccines free through the public health clinic. As long as you go to a clinic in the county where you live, they can usually accommodate you with free or very low cost vaccinations.

Also, check with your local hospitals. Some run vaccine "fairs" to the public and you can sometimes get seasonal vaccinations for low to no cost.

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

Are you employed in healthcare currently? I was able to get all of my vaccines and titers for free in nursing school because the hospital I was employed at as a tech did not charge.

[mrsboots87]

Have you tried volunteering at a hospital? They will require the same vax as nursing school (most of the time anyway) and will cover the cost to get you vaccinated. Only issue is that it can take a while to get through the interview process. Did you not look at the health requirements before applying to this school? I know its too late now, but this could have been taken care of well before now when you are in crunch time and only have a few weeks until clinicals start. ALso, maybe some financial aid?

[pmabraham, BSN, RN]

Good day:

mrsboots87 suggestion is outright awesome. Also, if there's a CostCo near you, they offer economical (compared to a lot of other places) vaccines without requiring membership.

Thank you.