Vaccine Provider Toolkit
Click the icon above to see our COVID-19 vaccine provider toolkit. It includes information on vaccine allocation, storage, billing/coding, enrollment instructions, FAQs, and more.
COVID-19 Testing Sites
Due to the expansive number of COVID-19 testing centers Alabama now has, we have decided to create a standalone webpage for this information. Please click the icon at the top of this alert to visit.
Coronavirus News and Information
Vaccine Sites for Physicians
Healthcare workers, including all physicians, are in the first group of people with the opportunity to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, because the initial supply of the vaccine will be limited, it is necessary for the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) to prioritize who will receive the initial doses.
The following is a list of physician categories that have been prioritized for the initial doses:
Any physician 65 years of age or older with underlying chronic health conditions who has not tested positive for COVID in the last 90 days and who is in direct physical contact with patients.
Any health care worker, nurse, PA, or aide 65 years or older with underlying chronic health conditions who have not tested positive for COVID in the last 90 days, who works with a physician and is in direct physical contact with patients.
Physicians, nurses, PA’s and aides working in an Urgent Clinic or a primary care office who have not tested positive for COVID in the last 90 days and is in direct physical contact with patients. This does NOT include a practice doing only well visits.
Pfizer Vaccine Clinics
Moderna Vaccine Clinics – Hospitals
Moderna Vaccine Clinics – County Health Departments
Moderna Vaccine Clinics – Pharmacies
‘Breakthrough Finding’ Reveals Why Certain COVID Patients Die
In an international study in Science, 10% of nearly 1,000 COVID patients who developed life-threatening pneumonia had antibodies that disable key immune system proteins called interferons. These antibodies — known as autoantibodies because they attack the body itself — were not found at all in 663 people with mild or asymptomatic COVID infections. Only four of 1,227 healthy individuals had the autoantibodies. The study, published on Oct. 23, was led by the COVID Human Genetic Effort, which includes 200 research centers in 40 countries.
“This is one of the most important things we’ve learned about the immune system since the start of the pandemic,” said Dr. Eric Topol, executive vice president for research at Scripps Research in San Diego, who was not involved in the new study. “This is a breakthrough finding.”
Read the full article on these studies and their findings here.
Genetic Variants of SARS-CoV-2 May Lead to False Negative Results with Molecular Tests
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting clinical laboratory staff and health care providers that false negative results may occur with any molecular test for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 if a mutation occurs in the part of the virus’ genome assessed by that test.
The FDA recommends clinical laboratory staff and health care providers who use molecular tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 to be aware that genetic variants of SARS-CoV-2 arise regularly and false-negative test results can occur and consider negative results in combination with clinical observations, patient history, and epidemiological information.
View the full alert from the FDA. If you have questions, contact COVID19DX@fda.hhs.gov.
Quick Resources
AL Pharmacy Updates:
COVID Maps & Data:
Financial Tools:
Resources tailored to your setting
Specialty Physicians
- ACS: Local Resumption of Elective Surgery Guidance
- Coronavirus Toolkit for Managing Your Independent Primary Care Practice
- ACOG Practice Advisory: Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19)
- ACEP PPE Updates – What You Need to Know
- Information for Pediatric Providers
- Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) Requirements and Implications Related to Coronavirus Disease 2019
Clinical Care
- Interim Clinical Guidance for Management of Patients with Confirmed Coronavirus Infection
- Guidance for Infection Control Prevention: FAQs for Patient Triage, Placement and Hospital Discharge
- Strategies to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 in Long-Term Care Facilities
- What Health Care Personnel Should Know about Caring for Patients with Confirmed or Possible Infection
- Preparedness Checklist for Transport and Arrival of Patients With Confirmed or Possible COVID-19
Practice Materials
- AMA Physician Practice Guide to Reopening
- Steps Health Care Facilities Can Take Now to Prepare for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
- Get Your Clinic Ready for Coronavirus (COVID-19)
- CDC: Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of PPE
- AMA CPT COVID-19 Codes and Descriptions for Testing
- How to avoid COVID-19 infection at work: tips from an infectious disease physician
COVID-19 News
Stay Up to Date on All Things Coronavirus
- Montgomery City Council votes down mask ordinance, sends doctors out in disgust
- Alabama breaks single-day coronavirus record four straight days
- UAB announces temporary expense reduction strategies due to COVID-19
- How Profit and Incompetence Delayed N95 Masks While People Died at the VA
- Health care workers on front lines during COVID-19 crisis
- North Alabama Doctors Adjust to New Way of Seeing Patients
- “Expect a second wave:” What lifting restrictions too soon could look like
- Coronavirus pushes telemedicine efforts, access in Alabama
- Doctors struggle to pay bills in pandemic and telemedicine isn’t saving them
- Former Decatur doctor leads state’s fight against COVID-19
- Alabama Medical Association president: Stay home, save lives
- COVID-19 Highlights Need to Lessen Restrictions on Rural Medical Care
- Health care officials praise stay-at-home order
- COVID-19 highlights need to lessen restrictions on rural medical care
- State health officer talks coronavirus prep, potential surge. ‘We really need for people to stay home’
- Airbus donates face masks to Alabama health care workers
- Ivey waives certain regulations for health care professionals, releases some probation and parole violators, makes other updates to State Health Order
- As COVID-19 cases increase, medical staffing shortages a concern
- Alabama reports first coronavirus death as cases near 400
- First death from COVID-19 reported in Alabama
- 60 COVID-19 patients hospitalized at UAB, more than half on ventilators
- Birmingham woman shares update during Coronavirus recovery at UAB
- Alabama Hospital Association CEO talks COVID-19 impact on health care
- Ivey: No shelter-in-place order needed for state right now
- ADPH establishes statewide hotline and direct e-mail for COVID-19 information
- Anonymous donor gives 100,000 pieces of protective medical equipment to Alabama health care
- State health officer says some Alabama hospitals are nearing capacity
- Birmingham City Council to vote on “Stay At Home” ordinance amid COVID-19 crisis
- State Health Officer issues mandatory health orders due to risks caused by COVID-19
- Huntsville Hospital setting up drive-through site for COVID-19 testing
- UAB infectious disease expert tests positive for COVID-19
- Supplemental State of Emergency: Coronavirus COVID-19
- 4 reasons Alabama lags behind on coronavirus testing
- State Health Officer issues mandatory health orders for five counties surrounding Jefferson County due to risks caused by COVID-19
- First COVID-19 case confirmed in Madison County
- ADPH offers new recommendations regarding public gatherings in response to COVID-19
- Declaration of a State of Emergency: Coronavirus (COVID-19)
- The Small-Business Die-Off Is Here
- This is where all 50 states stand on reopening
- Only 1 Percent of the Population has Been Tested
- Coronavirus Death in California Came Weeks Before First Known U.S. Death
- Testing Falls Woefully Short as Trump Seeks an End to Stay-at-Home Orders
- CMS to allow providers to practice at top of license, across states
- NYT: Coronavirus Was Slow to Spread to Rural America. Not Anymore.
- New York Times: Coronavirus Live Updates
- ‘I Do Fear for My Staff,’ a Doctor Said. He Lost His Job.
- Thousands of US medical workers furloughed, laid off as routine patient visits drop during coronavirus pandemic
- More than 3 million file U.S. unemployment claims, the most ever in a week
- Clinicians Struggle With PPE Shortages
- Martha Roby: COVID-19 Update
- Top Pentagon officials estimate coronavirus crisis could last months
- Physicians may no longer need a new license to cross state lines
- DEA Okays Telehealth to Prescribe Opioids Amid COVID-19 Emergency
- American Hospital Capacity And Projected Need for COVID-19 Patient Care
- FAQs on Shortages of Surgical Masks and Gowns
- “This is not the bat’s fault”: A disease expert explains where the coronavirus likely comes from
- Why do viruses often come from bats? A discussion with your friendly neighborhood virologist
- Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus
- Profile of a Killer Virus
- Risk Perception Through the Lens of Politics in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic
- COVID-19: The CIDRAP Viewpoint
- COVID-19 No Worse Than the Flu? Hardly
- What Antibody Studies Can Tell You — and More Importantly, What They Can’t
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection in Children and Adolescents
- First confirmed detection of SARS-CoV-2 in untreated wastewater in Australia: A proof of concept for the wastewater surveillance of COVID-19 in the community
- Ending coronavirus lockdowns will be a dangerous process of trial and error
- Coronavirus hot spots erupt in nation’s high-risk communities
- Novel Coronavirus and Old Lessons — Preparing the Health System for the Pandemic
- Critical Supply Shortages — The Need for Ventilators and Personal Protective Equipment during the Covid-19 Pandemic
- The Toughest Triage — Allocating Ventilators in a Pandemic
- FDA: Investigational COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma – Emergency INDs
- Here’s How Many People Have the Coronavirus in Your State
- Study suggests new coronavirus may remain on surfaces for days
- No Evidence Found for SARS-CoV-2 Vertical Transmission to Fetus
- Covid-19: ibuprofen should not be used for managing symptoms, say doctors and scientists
- FDA to Study Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19
- COVID-19 in a Long-Term Care Facility
- Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease (03/19/20)
- Estimating clinical severity of COVID-19 from transmission dynamics in Wuhan, China (03/19/20)
- Covid-19 — The Search for Effective Therapy (03/18/20)
- A Trial of Lopinavir–Ritonavir in Adults Hospitalized with Severe Covid-19 (03/18/20)
- From Containment to Mitigation of COVID-19 in the US (03/13/20)
- Supporting the Health Care Workforce During the COVID-19 Global Epidemic (03/12/20)
- Priorities for the US Health Community Responding to COVID-19 (03/03/20)
- US Emergency Legal Responses to Novel Coronavirus (02/13/20)
- Coronavirus Infections—More Than Just the Common Cold (01/23/20)
- The Business of Medicine in the Era of COVID-19
- The Race for Coronavirus Vaccines
- COVID-19 and the Financial Health of US Hospitals
- What policy makers need to know about COVID-19 protective immunity
- Born Into A Pandemic: Virus Complicates Births For Moms And Babies
- About Half of Lower-Income Americans Report Household Job or Wage Loss Due to COVID-19
- Restarting America Means People Will Die. So When Do We Do It?
- A National and State Plan To End the Coronavirus Crisis
- It’s the End of the World Economy as We Know It
- 1819: AL Senate Candidates Discuss the Coronavirus and the $2 Trillion Stimulus Bill
- Senate Approves $2 Trillion Stimulus After Bipartisan Deal
- FDA will allow doctors to treat critically ill coronavirus patients with blood from survivors
- CMS approves Medicaid waivers for 11 states in response to COVID-19 crisis
- Revised Families First Coronavirus Response Act Becomes Law — Five Things Healthcare Providers Need to Know
- White House, Congress agree on $2 trillion virus rescue bill
- Executive Order on Prioritizing and Allocating Health and Medical Resources
- Sewell updates public on efforts to fight virus
- Lawmakers may add surprise billing plan to virus response bill
- Private Health Coverage of COVID-19: Key Facts and Issues
- State Data and Policy Actions to Address Coronavirus (Kaiser Family Foundation)
- Senate passes House coronavirus relief package with no changes
- White House proposes $1 trillion coronavirus stimulus package
- A Brief History of Quarantine
- Listen: Don’t Worry About a ‘New Strain’
- The Problem With Stories About Dangerous Coronavirus Mutations
- What Health Care Leaders and Clinicians Say About the Covid-19 Pandemic
- Health Insurers to Investors: We’re Good. Health Insurers to Lawmakers: Please Help.
- Many Health Providers on Brink of Insolvency
- Medical Staffing Companies Cut Doctors’ Pay While Spending Millions on Political Ads
- Coronavirus Fuels Explosive Growth In Telehealth ― And Concern About Fraud
- How the Small-Business Health Insurance Market Is Faring
- Primary Care and the COVID-19 Pandemic
- To ‘Keep The Lights On,’ Doctors And Hospitals Ask For Advance Medicare Payments
- 15 heroic firsthand stories from the coronavirus front lines
- Restarting America Means People Will Die. So When Do We Do It?
- Dispatch From A Country Doctor: Seeing Patients Differently In The Time Of Coronavirus
- Doctors worried about survival of their medical practices: ‘This could be the death blow,’ says physician
- Doctors will die. My friends will die.
- We are not expendable. We are not replaceable.
- America’s Hospitals Have Never Experienced Anything Like This
- Strong, Determined: Portraits of COVID-19 Healthcare Workers
- A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients
- I Thought COVID-19 Was Overblown. I Was Wrong.
- 4 Ways you havent thought about using telehealth during covid-19 pandemic
- I’m a mom, a daughter and a doctor – here’s how my family is preparing for the days ahead
- How The Novel Coronavirus And The Flu Are Alike … And Different
- It’s scary as hell to be a doctor right now
- The Healthiest Way to Sweat Out a Pandemic
- How Parents Can Keep Kids Busy (and Learning) in Quarantine
- How You Should Get Food During the Pandemic
- The Dos and Don’ts of ‘Social Distancing’
- In public health emergency, agencies make plans for vulnerable populations
- Covid-19 — The Law and Limits of Quarantine
- Coronavirus Puts a Spotlight on Paid Leave Policies
- 7 things to do instead of hoarding toilet paper