We will start our half-day flu clinics in two weeks. They are planned now for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and some Friday mornings from September 29 through the end of October. We will extend the clinics into early November if that proves necessary. That is still well in advance of the normal arrival of flu. Everyone should get the flu shot.
How the clinics will work
You will use an appointment calendar on our website to choose a 15-minute slot on the day of your choice. On that day, when you arrive in our parking lot, you call the office main line, (781) 684-0600 to confirm your arrival. A staff person will quickly confirm that you have no known Covid-19 exposure and then invite you up to our floor. Please dress so that an upper shoulder (deltoid region) is readily available for the injection.
We will use the office across the hall from us for the nursing staff to administer the vaccine. Everyone under 65 years of age gets the Flublok vaccine; everyone over 65 gets the high-dose flu vaccine. This is the same as we have done in recent years.
We hope the entire process from arrival to departure will be under 20 minutes, though it might be a bit longer.
In addition, we will of course provide the appropriate flu shot to anyone who has an in-person office visit this fall so a separate trip to one of our clinics would not be needed. And you are welcome to go to a pharmacy to get the flu vaccine; if so, please let us know when you do for our records.
How to sign up for a clinic
We will shortly open a calendar on our website on which you can see the available half-days for the clinics. When you click on a day, it will show you the open appointments, similar to the Open Table restaurant app. Each time slot allows for 4 patients to sign up, so multiple members in one family could be accommodated at the same time.
When you complete the signup, which requires your name, phone and email, you will receive a confirmation email. We get the same information. The day prior to your flu shot appointment, you will also get a reminder email.
If anyone cannot use the website for any reason, you can call the office and the admin staff will make the appointment for you.
Detailed instructions to come shortly
We are finishing a few but important details on the calendar application shown above. We expect it to be live by the weekend. At that time, I will send another email with detailed instructions including graphics to illustrate the signup process, which is quite easy to use. There will be a simple password required (our 10-digit office phone number, digits only) to access the signup form.
