Hospital and Physician Update

November – December 2020

A message from Dr. S. George Kipa, deputy chief medical officer
Flu season and COVID-19 pose double threat

"If you haven’t yet gotten a flu vaccine, you should get one as soon as possible."

That’s the message I would give my patients if I were still practicing as a primary care physician. A recommendation by a physician, nurse, pharmacist or other health care professional is one of the most important factors influencing a patient’s decision to get a flu vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the CDC recommended that everyone get vaccinated by the end of October, it’s still not too late. Data from the last flu season — fall 2019 to spring 2020 — show that between 24,000 and 62,000 people in the U.S. died from the flu.

This fall, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, it’s more important than ever to get a flu shot. Flu season, combined with the pandemic, poses a double threat that could severely strain the health care system.

While the flu is less deadly than the coronavirus, it has resulted in between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 and 61,000 deaths each year since 2010, in the U.S., according to the CDC. By comparison, more than 200,000 deaths in this country alone have been attributed to COVID-19 from January of this year through the end of September 2020.

While getting a flu shot certainly won’t protect anyone from getting COVID-19, it does help prevent flu-related deaths in addition to providing another crucial benefit: helping reduce the strain on our nation’s already overburdened health care resources by decreasing the number of people who may need to be hospitalized. The CDC estimates that increasing the number of people vaccinated — even by 5% — could prevent thousands of hospitalizations because of the flu.

Let’s not forget to remind patients that the current precautions being used to minimize the spread of COVID-19 can also substantially lower the risk of infection and spreading the flu. These precautions include frequent hand washing, social distancing, avoiding crowds and wearing masks.

Also, we can remind patients to do their best to stay healthy, eat and sleep well and exercise regularly. These actions can go a long way to help bodies fight either virus.

CDC toolkit on fighting flu
As reported in the October issue of The Record, the CDC has developed a Health Care Professionals Fight Flu Toolkit* to help your practice fight the flu. For more information, see the CDC’s Influenza page.*

COVID-19 information
Since last spring, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has provided a wealth of information to members, employers and providers about the COVID-19 pandemic. Providers can get information in three main ways:

1. Click on the For Providers tab from our public webpage at bcbsm.com/coronavirus.
2. From the Newsletters and Resources page of web-DENIS, click on Coronavirus (COVID-19) information updates for providers webpage. This provides more details than our public webpage.
3. Get the latest status of all temporary measures to battle COVID-19 — including those related to utilization management, telehealth and billing — on the Temporary changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic document, which shows the start and end dates for each measure. This and related documents are on our coronavirus webpage and our public website.

*Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan doesn’t own or control this website.

No portion of this publication may be copied without the express written permission of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, except that BCBSM participating health care providers may make copies for their personal use. In no event may any portion of this publication be copied or reprinted and used for commercial purposes by any party other than BCBSM.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network are nonprofit corporations and independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.