Need a Flu Shot? Pull Up to the Urgent Care Center and Roll Down Your Window

As we first told you weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that everyone who should be vaccinated against influenza—which would include all Americans over the age of 6 months, unless they have a contraindication—do so by the end of October. The CDC says the flu will strike early this year, but as always there are more naysayers among the public than there should be. Some people just don’t think it works, while others subscribe to unscientific (and outright debunked) notions that the flu shot causes all manner of adverse effects, including the flu itself. If science and education haven’t dissuaded them of those misconceptions, we may have to accept that they’re not going to come around. There are still other patients, however, who think they just don’t have time or that it’s too inconvenient. Some urgent care providers are going all out to ensure those excuses evaporate by making it painfully simple. Velocity Urgent Care, for example, just held a free, drive-through flu clinic at 10 of its locations in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. No matter how you do it, ensure you give every willing patient the chance to get a flu shot. Even those who continue to say no will remember you tried—and they might be likely to make a return visit if they do catch the flu.