PALMETTO STATE EXTRA: Your Health & You!

COVID-19 THIS WEEK - MUSC Health Florence Weekly COVID-19 Report

At MUSC Health, the safety of patients, families, care team members, remains the number one priority. Close monitoring of the COVID‐19 pandemic continues at the MUSC Health – Florence Division. The following information pertains to MUSC Health Florence and Marion Medical Centers only. The MUSC Health Florence Division Public Affairs and Media Relations (PAMR) department issues a regular COVID-19 update each week. Please read the report in its entirety; information can change quickly.

Confirmed as of 2/16/2021:

Basic stats

Current Inpatient COVID -19 rule-outs: 1

• “Rule out” means that patients who present with symptoms of the coronavirus are swabbed, placed in isolation and treated like they are positive until they are “ruled out” (test negative).

COVID-19 cases

Inpatient Positive COVID-19: 29 (Florence 24/ Marion 5)

Mobile Testing Sites

Florence County mobile test sites confirmed COVID-19: 1,827 positives out of 13,418 patients tested, a positivity rate of 13.7%

Marion County mobile test sites confirmed COVID-19: 540 positives out of 4,082 patients tested, a positivity rate of 13.2%

COVID-19 TESTING

MUSC Health is offering increased testing capacity across the state and results are typically reported within 24-48 hours, so test availability or turnaround time should not be a deterrent to individuals. Patients are asked to wear a mask whether symptomatic or asymptomatic and bring a valid picture ID and insurance card (if applicable). Test results will be available within 48 hours. Patients under 18 years old must be accompanied by a legal guardian. As a reminder, if patients have insurance, MUSC Health is required to bill that insurance provider; however, patients will not be responsible for any costs associated with testing per the CARES Act. If patients have deductibles or no insurance, they will not receive a bill.

COVID-19 Testing Schedule

FLORENCE:

Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 3 p.m., MUSC Health Florence Surgery Center, 1580 Freedom Blvd. in Florence, SC, 29501. Located on MUSC Health Florence Medical Center’s main campus.

MULLINS:

Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 10 a.m., MUSC Health Marion Medical Center, 2829 East Highway 76, in Mullins, SC, 29574.

COVID-19 VACCINATION UPDATE

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MUSC Health is aligned with CDC and SCDHEC recommendations for distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. As supply becomes more readily available, MUSC Health will next offer the Pfizer vaccine to community essential workers in early 2021. The community is encouraged to monitor muschealth.org for COVID-19 vaccine availability criteria, updates and FAQs.

MUSC Health is asking for clinical and non-clinical volunteers to help expedite the vaccination roll-out. Interested individuals should email volunteer@musc.edu.

Our goal at MUSC is to get COVID-19 vaccinations into arms. MUSC Health is currently administering vaccines to health care personnel providing direct medical care in any setting, health care personnel providing indirect medical care, workers exposed to bodily fluids, and residents and staff of all long-term care facilities. This group also includes South Carolina residents age 70 or older, regardless of health status or preexisting conditions and home caregivers of children who are medically fragile or complex, or severely disabled. The rationale for adding these children’s care givers is to help ensure a safe home environment for chronically ill children under age 18, who are not eligible for the vaccine, by offering vaccination to their primary caregivers.

Eligible individuals should visit https://muschealth.org/vaccine to make an appointment. View information and a video with directions on how to schedule a vaccination appointment.

All individuals will need to sign an attestation to their vaccine status and may need to present credentials/proof to verify they qualify to receive vaccination. Patients who will not attest to their status or who are not able to present credentials (e.g., driver’s license for the 70+ group or employer badge, medical license, picture of license, or other proof) will not be vaccinated and asked to return with proof at their earliest convenience. For parents or home care givers of a medically fragile or complex or severely disabled child, individuals will be asked to supply a medical provider’s signed attestation to confirm that the parent or care giver meets criteria for vaccination at this time.

The federal government is currently providing the vaccine to MUSC for free, so there is no charge for the vaccine itself to either MUSC or the patient. MUSC will charge governmental payers (Medicaid/Medicare) and individual and employer-sponsored private health plans for the administration. This helps cover costs associated with obtaining, storing, scheduling, and providing trained staff and supplies for vaccination administration.

Individual and employer-sponsored private health plans subject to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) preventive services coverage standards must provide coverage for individuals to receive vaccines that the National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends without cost-sharing. Those individual and employer-sponsored private health plans not subject to the ACA’s preventive services coverage standards may elect to cover the administration fee without cost-sharing to the patient but are not required to do so. Patients should consult their insurance providers to determine what their company will or will not require them to pay for related to the administration of the vaccine.

The Department of Health and Human Services has provided a mechanism for providers to bill the COVID-19 Provider Relief fund for the cost of vaccine administration for uninsured patients. Uninsured patients will be able to receive the vaccine with no out of pocket cost.

The MUSC Health team continues to work hard and around the clock on this complex and important distribution process.

• Total number of COVID-19 vaccinations received: 69,225

• Total number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered by MUSC Health: 81,680

o 117.8% doses administered (accounts for extra doses found per vial)

o Note: Vaccinations not yet administered are aligned with scheduled appointments.

• MUSC Health is receiving the Pfizer vaccine exclusively at this time, due to sub-zero freezing storage capacity.

Viral Variant

The MUSC COVID-19 Epidemiology Intelligence Project is a digital dashboard that provides leading indicators related to the COVID-19 epidemic to enable informed decisions. Current situation assessments for MUSC Health – Charleston (Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties), MUSC Health Florence, and MUSC Health Lancaster divisions are available on this site.

HELPFUL WEB LINKS:

General information:

http://muschealth.org/coronavirus or http://muschealth.org/covid

Information about testing options: http://musc.co/testing

MUSC Virtual Urgent Care: http://musc.care

COVID-19 vaccination: https://muschealth.org/patients-visitors/coronavirus-information/covid-vaccine OR https://muschealth.org/vaccine

MUSC Health diagnostic saliva-based COVID-19 testing

MUSC Health is prioritizing diagnostic COVID-19 saliva testing for symptomatic patients (by appointment only) at select locations in the Charleston, Florence and Lancaster communities. Results will be available in MyChart in less than 24 hours (per internal data reports). The test is not a “rapid” point-of-care test and results must be processed within a clinical laboratory. The cost of the test will be billed to insurance carriers. Based on the recent CARES Act, insured or uninsured patients will not have an outstanding balance for this test.

High levels of accuracy were reported for MUSC Health saliva tests, thanks to continued interdisciplinary collaboration and expertise sharing among clinical care and bench research teams.

Status of MUSC COVID-19 diagnostic testing

At this time, MUSC Health is not experiencing significant issues which would delay either the scheduling of a test or delivering the results of tests to patients. Individuals who are symptomatic or have had a significant exposure to someone with COVID-19 should seek testing.

Our goal is to maintain the quality, timeliness and volume of testing needed by our state and community. No changes have been made at this time. We will provide timely notification to the public if any changes occur and ask for understanding and patience as we respond as best we can to external factors beyond our system’s control that may arise.

MUSC Health antibody testing

MUSC Health is offering voluntary COVID-19 serologic testing through musc.care. Results will be available in MyChart within 48-72 hours. Testing is available at select locations in the Charleston, Florence, and Lancaster divisions and by appointment only. Repeat testing, for those who test negative, will be offered no more than every 30 days for qualified candidates. The cost of the test will be billed to insurance carriers. Based on the recent CARES Act, insured patients will not have an outstanding balance for this test.

The antibodies detected by this blood test indicate that a person had an antibody response to SARS- CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), whether symptoms developed from the infection or the infected person was asymptomatic. These antibodies may help provide protection from future infection as well as identify those still at risk.

MUSC Health is committed to offering the best tests available. It is important to make sure individuals and the media understand what the test results mean.

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About MUSC

The MUSC Health Florence Division consists of MUSC Health – Florence and Marion Medical Centers and the employed practices of each hospital. Both hospitals and entities are a part of the MUSC family.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians’ practice plan, and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2019, for the fifth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3.2 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care