Happy fall y’all! We are so looking forward to a little cooler weather and more quality time outside with kids. What we are not looking forward to is flu season. Every year we look to the Southern Hemisphere to understand what our flu season might look like. Australia’s flu season is usually a good predictor of what is coming our way, and they are currently ending the worst flu season in five years according to their Department Of Health and Aged care. The CDC is on alert for signs of an early and aggressive flu season in the United States. Another unique thing about this year’s flu in Australia is that 80% of the hospitalizations were in children, and children ages 5-9 had the highest rate of flu cases. Current data points to the flu vaccine efficacy to likely be over 50% this year. Unfortunately the flu vaccine doesn’t prevent getting sick with flu, but it has a significant ability to reduce hospitalization and severe symptoms. We understand that many families are vaccine fatigued, but we strongly encourage annual flu vaccines. Please call our office to get scheduled!

More vaccine updates! Covid: For children, aged 6 months to four years who haven’t been vaccinated we recommend the initial two or three-dose series with the updated 2023 Covid vaccine. Children five years and older are up-to-date if they have received one of the updated 2023 COVID-19 vaccines. Check with your pharmacy for availability. Children under 3 years still need a prescription from a physician. We are happy to send those prescriptions!

RSV: This is our very first opportunity to protect our children younger than eight months who are born during RSV season with a monoclonal antibody called Beyfortus. Some children aged 8 months through 19 months may also qualify for a dose if they are at increased risk for severe RSV disease due to certain underlying medical conditions. We recommend newborns receive Beyforus in the hospital prior to discharge if possible.

Beyforytus is given as a single dose. One dose protects children for at least five months and reduces risk of severe disease by 80%. Side effects were uncommon in clinical trials with mostly local injection site redness and swelling. No serious allergic reactions occurred.

As this is the first year Beyfortu is offered, it is unclear how insurance companies are going to reimburse. We are working very closely with our product representative, but have very little information at this time. We plan to offer Beyfortus, but families need to be prepared to pay for the dose out-of-pocket at this time. The price for vaccine plus administration will be $520. We understand that you may have some sticker shock and we are hoping that insurance companies will rise to the occasion and pay fair compensation. As a small private medical group, we need to know that our costs will be compensated. In the grand scheme of things, it is definitely less expensive than a hospital stay and thousands less than Synagis, the previously used monoclonal antibody (which was a 4 dose series only provided only to high risk babies). We are committed to staying on top of all the latest and will communicate when we are ready to start administering this exciting new preventative monoclonal antibody.

We love you and care for you! The CMG physicians