Three Bay Area counties have suspended coronavirus vaccine supplies to a San Francisco-based health care provider whose procedures allowed ineligible individuals to cut the line, local officials say.
The company, One Medical, is no longer receiving vaccines from San Francisco, San Mateo or Alameda counties, and San Francisco health officials said Wednesday they have directed One Medical to return more than 1,600 doses.
When asked about its practices in the Bay Area last week, One Medical officials said accusations that the company knowingly disregarded eligibility guidelines “are in direct contradiction to our actual approach to vaccine administration.”
Early in the vaccine rollout, the counties allocated vaccine doses to One Medical after the company demonstrated it could distribute them efficiently. The company offered free trials of its $199 membership program to people who wanted to sign up for the vaccine.
But this month, officials at San Francisco’s health department asked One Medical to provide information on how it was administering COVID-19 vaccines after fielding complaints that ineligible San Franciscans were getting vaccinated.
The company’s response indicated that people who did not meet the state’s criteria for vaccine eligibility at that time had been inoculated.
“Because of this and our inability to verify the (eligibility) of this cohort, DPH has stopped allocating doses to One Medical,” a health department spokesperson said Wednesday in an email.
Five days after One Medical responded to the health department’s inquiry, Jonathan Sears, deputy director of vaccine operations for San Francisco’s COVID-19 Command Center, directed the company to return 270 vials of Pfizer vaccine — containing 1,620 doses — that it had listed as “saved for other uses.”
San Mateo and Alameda counties have also stopped allocating doses to One Medical after learning the company allowed line-cutting, according to officials in both counties.
One Medical is a membership-based concierge service that offers physician care in 12 cities, and 24/7 virtual care. It has expanded from one location in San Francisco in 2007 to more than 72 across the country.
California currently allows vaccines to be distributed to individuals over age 65, as well as health care workers and other categories of essential workers, including teachers, emergency responders and agriculture workers. But, initially, many local health departments struggled with supply shortages that made it difficult for them to expand eligibility past the most vulnerable groups, like people over 75 and health care workers.
In early February, San Mateo County’s public health department received complaints originating from two school districts alleging that One Medical was vaccinating teachers not yet eligible based on local and state criteria, according to Rebecca Archer, chief deputy county counsel for San Mateo’s Office of the County Counsel.
After investigating the allegations, the county’s public health department found One Medical had vaccinated 70 ineligible individuals, and terminated its contract with the company on Feb. 10, Archer said. It’s unclear whether all 70 of those ineligible individuals who got vaccinated were teachers because One Medical did not clarify, she said.
Alameda County allocated 975 doses to One Medical in late January “so they could vaccinate the Phase 1A health care workers who were their members,” according to Neetu Balram, a spokesperson for Alameda County’s Health Department. Phase 1A includes health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The county stopped allocating doses to One Medical, she said, after the company “indicated that they planned to vaccinate more than their health care workers” — the only approved group prioritized for vaccinations at the time aside from long-term care residents — next.
The vaccination distribution problem is likely more widespread, as NPR and Forbes also previously reported internal documents and interviews with current employees showing that One Medical had let ineligible people skip the line up and down the West Coast.
But One Medical pushed back.
“We are disappointed to learn that ill-informed hearsay is leading to public misconceptions about our COVID-19 vaccine protocols and, more importantly, has impugned our company values in our efforts to collaborate with Bay Area health officials to administer COVID-19 vaccines. We remain committed to serving our communities and hope that any misconceptions can be cleared up quickly so we can continue doing this vital work,” the spokesperson said when a Chronicle reporter asked them about complaints last week.
The company did not immediately respond when asked Wednesday for a response to the actions taken by Alameda and San Mateo counties.
The California Department of Public Health allocates vaccines to both “multi-county entities” like Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health and local health departments based on their needs, calculated by the current eligibility criteria. To speed up distribution, local health departments — typically at the county level — can set up contracts with health care providers like One Medical and local hospitals.
One Medical set up contracts with multiple Bay Area counties, as it was among the first health care providers in the state with the infrastructure to administer vaccines, according to a spokesperson from San Francisco’s Department of Public Health.
“To their credit, One Medical figured it out early,” said Roland Pickens, director of San Francisco’s Health Network, which is currently helping the city distribute coronavirus vaccines. The company “had infrastructure to get shots in arms quickly,” he said.
One Medical has also been distributing vaccines in Marin County. Laine Hendricks, a spokesperson for the county’s Health and Human Services department, said the agency received an email in late January alleging that One Medical was offering vaccines to people under age 65. That age group was not eligible to receive vaccines at the time.
Hendricks said the county is looking into whether One Medical is abiding by the terms of its memorandum of understanding, which states it will follow the county’s policies on vaccination. So far, an initial review of the data did not show “obvious signs of wrongdoing,” Hendricks said.
Santa Clara County gave One Medical about 300 doses to vaccinate health care workers on its staff, according to a county spokesperson. It hasn’t given the company any more doses since but did not cite any wrongdoing as the reason.
Archer, the San Mateo County official, noted that the county has received only one other complaint regarding inappropriate vaccinations separate from One Medical — and that complaint turned out to be a false alarm.
“I think there’s a lot of positives in the vaccine story,” Archer said. “It’s a shame this happened with One Medical.”
Susie Neilson and Meghan Bobrowsky are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: susan.neilson@sfchronicle.com, meghan.bobrowsky@sfchronicle.com.