San Mateo County and Alameda County say they've stopped allocating additional vaccines to One Medical, an SF-based national healthcare practice, the Investigative Unit confirmed with the counties Thursday.
One Medical is a national healthcare provider with patients who pay $199 to become new members. On Wednesday, our team reported San Francisco County Department of Public Health (SFDPH) penalized One Medical for vaccinating ineligible patients and planning unauthorized vaccination events, like walk-ins and an Oracle Park mass vaccination launch.
We received this information after asking SFDPH about reports we received of people paying the fee just to take advantage of the organization's easy-to-book vaccine appointment system.
Read: SF Penalizes One Medical for Vaccinating Ineligible Patients
On Thursday, San Mateo County spokesman sent a statement saying the county received a complaint and found One Medical used vaccines to vaccinate 70 ineligible people. The county promptly ceased providing One Medical vaccines on February 5, the spokesman wrote, and terminated its agreement with the practice.
In response, the company said in a statement, they "in good faith -- vaccinated a group of public school teachers who had been referred to One Medical by their school superintendent."
Alameda County officials said in late January they allocated hundreds of dozes to One Medical, but after learning the practice was planning to vaccinate more than their healthcare workers, they stopped distribution.
On Thursday, One Medical said it hasn't received information that it's not receiving future allocations from Alameda County. NBC Bay Area reached out to county officials for clarification.
“The issues with One Medical were disappointment but are not representative of the county’s robust and successful vaccination effort,” San Mateo County officials said in a statement.
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In response to the county penalties, One Medical released a statement saying, “Those whom we have vaccinated within the unspecified 'number' of doses in question from the [San Francisco Department of Public Health] have specifically attested that they were eligible healthcare workers.”
“We had permission from the SFDPH to vaccinate this group and were transparent with SFDPH about our process and protocols to do so,” One Medical said. "We are proud of our team’s steadfast dedication to doing our best to save lives at this critical time."
Candice Nguyen is an investigative reporter with NBC Bay Area. Email her about this story or others at candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com
