House panel is investigating One Medical for allegedly having customers cut the Covid vaccine line

A conference committee overseeing the Covid-19 crisis has opened an investigation into concierge care provider One Medical for giving vaccination shots to executives’ family and friends and wealthy clients who were not yet eligible in their country.

Representative James Clyburn, DS.C., chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent a letter to One Medical CEO Amir Dan Rubin on Monday requesting documents on their vaccination allocation practices.

Because the supply of Covid-19 vaccines is scarce, state health departments have rationed doses to prioritized groups of people, mostly primary care workers, the elderly, and those with underlying medical conditions putting them at higher risk. In the letter, Clyburn claimed that San Francisco-based One Medical “has repeatedly and intentionally ignored vaccine eligibility requirements in multiple cities and states for the past two months.”

One Medical, with a market capitalization of approximately $ 6.4 billion, provides VIP healthcare to customers in exchange for an annual fee of $ 199. The company, which went public under the name 1Life Healthcare last year, according to its site operates in nine states and the District of Columbia.

Despite being warned that the company’s lax oversight of vaccine eligibility rules allowed ineligible patients to cross the line, One Medical has reportedly failed to secure a implement effective protocol to verify eligibility and has instructed staff not to qualify, “Clyburn wrote.

“I am deeply concerned that the refusal of medical providers to adhere to vaccination priority guidelines and deliberately passing doses to individuals in lower priority groups could cost more American lives and slow virus control across the country. Or even derails, “Clyburn wrote.

One Medical representatives did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Shares of One Medical fell more than 1% during morning trading on Tuesday.

The congressional investigation comes after NPR received internal communications from the company last week that it routinely allowed wealthy customers and those with connections to business leaders to break the line for the vaccine. In some cities where One Medical operates, the company has received thousands of doses of the scarce vaccines, NPR reported.

Complaints about the company have prompted regulators, including the Washington State Department of Health, to stop distributing the vaccines to One Medical, NPR found.

“These reports raise concerns that the company may be using the government-funded vaccine roll-out to increase membership and generate reimbursements regardless of whether potential paying members are actually eligible for vaccination,” Clyburn wrote in the letter. Company.

NPR reported that some health care providers were pushing One Medical to change its practice.

“Why are young patients with no health problems, on trial membership … allowed to book and receive a covid vaccine while health workers are on the waiting list?” a medical professional asked in January, according to internal communications obtained by NPR. “I just saw two appointments for that.”

In response to similar questions, employees were told not to prevent patients from receiving the vaccine.

“If this person sees themselves in a level being vaccinated, they can confirm that and make an appointment,” Spencer Blackman, the company’s director of clinical training, said in a note to a physician, according to NPR. “You can’t make the decision when someone ‘gets’ [a] vaccine or not. “