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Local Covid-19 Vaccination Info

Local Phase 1 Covid-19 Vaccination Information

APPOINTMENTS ARE REQUIRED IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE VACCINE.

Appointments are exclusively available for Phase1A prioritized groups which are as follows:

  • Residents age 65 and older
  • Health care workers

One person per appointment is permitted; individuals without appointment will be turned away.

What to bring to your appointment

  • Must present valid ID that show you are 65 and older
  • Health Care Worker, bring your employee badge

Make an Appointment Online

  • Check below for each County appointment links
  • Walk-in appointments WILL NOT be accepted.
  • Please note that the Moderna vaccine requires 2 doses that are 28 days apart.

Duval County
 

The Duval County Health Department announced new appointments will be added through the online system every Thursday at 5 p.m.

Appointments can no longer be made by phone. Only online appointments are available.

”The link will change each week and will be posted on the Department of Health -Duval website: duval.floridahealth.gov. Click on the yellow alert box.
 

St Johns County

Online registration to make a vaccination appointment will open at 9 a.m. on Thursday, January 7, for appointments on Friday, January 8,” a notification from the county’s Emergency Operations Center said. “A registration link will be announced Wednesday, January 6 at www.sjcfl.us/coronvirusvaccinations

St Johns County Covid Vaccination Text Alerts

Clay County

According to Clay County, all appointments to receive its initial allotment of 3,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine have been filled and there are no additional appointments at this time. Clay County said that as soon as the state provides an update on additional allotments, the county will open for additional appointments.

The county website to sign up is alert.claycountygov.com

For the latest updates please visit the following Balanced Physician Care social media pages

Facebook Link

Twitter Link

end of pandemic

How Does a Pandemic End?

Several of you have asked me “How does an epidemic or pandemic end?” The answer, like most things in life, is – it depends. The metaphor of the forest fire is useful here. Consider that a forest fire can only get started when there is a spark (the virus) and enough fuel (people’s bodies) to accelerate. Like a forest fire, it starts small but with enough dry fuel, it can pick up momentum quickly. An epidemic, like a forest fire, can also jump to new locations. The wind can spread embers of a fire to new locations even as fire fighters are putting out the original location. Consider an infected person getting on an airplane and infecting other air travelers as well as people at a new location.

     The forest fire metaphor remains useful when we consider strategies for ending the epidemic. First of all, we can attempt to deprive the fire of fuel such as clearing brush from around structures. That would be similar to the stay at home orders that can help prevent people from getting in the virus’ path. Secondly, firefighters in towers can look out for flare ups and sequentially knock the flare-ups down. This is akin to testing for infection, tracing contacts and placing infected persons in quarantine. As with a forest fire, the strategy of testing, tracing and quarantining can only work if we adequately test to identify new hot spots, and then have the capability to isolate and treat those new cases. This strategy cannot work with a raging forest fire as there are simply too many burning areas to deal with at the same time. And, so with the epidemic, when the prevalence of the virus in the population gets too high – for example over 25% -- attempts at contact tracing and quarantine will be overwhelmed and ineffective. We are seeing this situation now in Miami-Dade county where the test positivity rate now exceeds 33%. At that point, the strategy as with a forest fire, is to retreat to safe lines and attempt to build a “fire-wall”. With the epidemic, this would be akin to preventing people from traveling from an endemic high prevalence area to a state with low prevalence of virus.

     The ultimate logical end of the metaphor would be the scorched earth situation wherein the fire burns everything in its path unimpeded and only the seeds left in the ground are there to repopulate the forest. That doomsday scenario might have occurred in pandemics past where very high percentages of the population were wiped out such as with the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages. That will not happen with us, but we should not be complacent as the virus is powerful and stealthy. Like a fire that can burn underground undetected, so the virus can spread via asymptomatic people and pop up in new locations.

 The current Covid-19 pandemic will end in any of the following ways:

  1.  We will develop a vaccine that is safe and adequately effective, and enough people will get it so that we develop societal herd immunity stopping the virus’ transmission. I have read that up to 1/3 of Americans might decline the vaccine which could prevent herd immunity.
  2. The virus will mutate to a less pathogenic form and peter out of its own accord.
  3. We will develop safe and effective drugs, or other treatments such as passive antibodies that will quickly treat infected persons and halt the transmission.
  4. We revert to severe shelter in place and travel ban protocols long enough to stop the virus from transmitting.

     Epidemics and pandemics end, one way or another. For reference, smallpox -- another airborne viral illness -- killed 400 million people in the 20th century before it was deemed eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980. The good news is we have seen examples from many other countries where organized projection of tried and true public health strategies of testing, identification of cases, tracing, and quarantine can reduce the transmission of Covid-19 to almost zero. The bad news is that the United States has shown little appetite or capability to do the organized hard work of stamping out the virus. Therefore, we are stuck with waiting for one and/or the other modes of viral decline for the forest fire to end…

Article by Rich Parker - Chief Medical Officer at Arcadia.io. 

 

Tai Chi Class – Online

Online Tai Chi Class

Instruction by Tai Chi for Health & Wellness

Sponsored by Balanced Physician Care

Location: Howell Park - Atlantic Beach, FL

Covid-19 Update

I just wanted to send out words of encouragement to our membership community.  I hear the questions and feel the tension grow each day.  Everyone wondering... How we are doing?  I believe our community and northeast Florida as a whole are doing better.  The hardwork of our community to "flatten the curve" is starting to show. We are headed in the right direction. Yet, there is still much work to be done, especially, in hospitals, but, if we continue to do the right thing, we will see even more signs of improvement and maybe an end to this pandemic.

I know we're all feeling uncomfortable during our self-quarantine but stay diligent in your efforts of social distancing for the sake of neighbors and loved ones.

I understand there is a lot of fear of what the future may bring.  I ask us not to give into fear, but to stay in the present moment and embrace the positives as much as you can.

For most of us this can be an opportunity for peace and self reflection.  Take time to be with your family and loved ones.  We will see ourselves through this.

I leave you with this thought...."Wash Your Hands & Wash Your Worry Away"

Please stay positive and reach out to us if you need anything,

Sharyl Truty MD

Truty_Sharyl-8602b

Dr. Sharyl has been engaged in family medicine, sports medicine and orthopedics for over sixteen years in many different capacities. She is owner of Balanced Physician Care, a holistic, Direct Primary Care medical practice in Ponte Vedra Beach.  Her practice provides a unique solution for individuals, families, and small business owners who are seeking answers to more personalized healthcare.  She is Board Certified in Family Practice and has a Certificate of Added Qualification in Sports Medicine.  She was team physician for the Chicago Red Stars women’s professional soccer team, completed a fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona and received her acupuncture at the UCLA physician certification. She currently resides in Jacksonville Beach with her husband, Myke and 6-year-old son, Lukas.

Covid-19 Update 3/20/20

Update on March 20, 2020 with Sharyl Truty MD on Covid-19 testing in Jacksonville, FL, cleaning products, and IV Therapy for virus.  

Upfront Surgery Pricing

As Americans grapple with a health care system that costs $10,000 per person annually, a form of health care that avoids the insurance system — known as direct primary care — is starting to become an alternative option.

The American Academy of Family Physicians defines direct primary care as giving “family physicians a meaningful alternative to fee-for-service insurance billing, typically by charging patients a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee. This fee covers all or most primary care services including clinical and laboratory services, consultative services, care coordination, and comprehensive care management.”

The model aims to simplify the system for both health care professionals and patients.

“We have significant bottlenecks and barriers in health care both on the provider side as well as the patient side,” Dr. Akash Goel, a gastroenterologist at Weill Cornell/New York-Presbyterian Hospital, told Yahoo Finance.

“So from a provider perspective,” Goel explained, “people are rightly frustrated because they're overburdened with [a high number of patients], short patient visits, unsatisfactory timelines to interact with patients, pressure from billing and external pressures that I think are on physicians that make the experience somewhat unsatisfactory.”

Health care spending in the U.S. continues to grow. (Source: California Health Care Foundation)

From a patient perspective, “people have insurance, but they're paying a lot for it,” Goel said. “The average person is spending somewhere in the range of $10,000 a year on health care, and they have high-deductible plans, so you have health insurance, but you don't necessarily get to use it because of the high deductibles or you have to pay out-of-pocket for it.”

The direct primary care model is “a little bit more streamlined in terms of receiving your health care,” according to Goel, partly because it limits the number of patients doctors are seeing and gives patients the option to avoid costly insurance plans.

‘We believe the system is broken’

Surgeries handled through the direct primary care method involve patients being able to see the total price for an operation and find a specialist for that price.

At the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, patients do exactly that. They choose surgeries at specific prices and pay a flat rate up front, with no insurance involved. The center was started by anesthesiologists Keith Smith and Steven Lantier. After years practicing medicine, they felt growing “frustration” with the health care system.

“We both started despising what was going on financially with the patients,” Lantier told Yahoo Finance (video above). “Because when you look at the bankruptcy statistics — medical bankruptcies for patients now — it’s egregious. The average American cannot afford health care today, so we believe the system is broken.”

A look at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma's website. (Photo: Screenshot)

The reason we could put it online is because we don’t take federal money

The Surgery Center of Oklahoma’s website allows potential patients to look up price quotes for all kinds of surgeries. Individuals simply have to click on the area of the body where they would need a surgery or a procedure done, find the exact name of the procedure, and a price is generated. From there, an option appears to request a specialist for further details.

“We took all of the numbers, added them up, then added about a 10 or 15% margin to all of that, and that’s the price we put it online,” Lantier explained. “The reason we could put it online is because we don’t take federal money. If we took any federal money — Medicare or Medicaid — we couldn’t do that.”

-Article by written by Adriana Belmonte, Yahoo Finance, 5/18/2019

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