Now that people 65 and older are eligible for vaccination, large health care providers are receiving a flurry of calls about when and where.
One of those callers was Ron Shalita, 70, who called the Kaiser appointment line around 6 a.m. on Thursday.
He says he waited about 45 minutes to speak to someone, who told him to contact his primary care doctor, who in turn sent him back to the appointment line, which by then had a wait time of four to six hours.
When he called back later, the wait time had narrowed ... to three to five hours.
On the phone with a reporter, he said, "I have a private line, and I’m actually on hold on that line. And I’m going to check in at 4:30, which would mark about three hours, [to] see if I’m still on hold."
Three hours did the trick. Shalita was able to schedule an appointment for Jan. 28.
Pam Hatayama is a Kaiser member in the same age group.
She knows someone who got an appointment at a different location than they usually visit.
Something like that would be fine with her.
"I would gladly go anywhere to go and get the vaccination," she said Thursday.
She waited on hold two hours and 45 minutes before giving up. Friday morning, she tried again at 7 a.m. and it took an hour and 45 minutes before a nurse answered.
And then ...
"Bingo!" Hatayma wrote in a text.
She and her husband both landed slots at their regular Oakland facility. The best part: The appointments are for Saturday.
In a statement, a Kaiser spokesperson acknowledged the long wait times and said not everyone who is eligible will be able to make an appointment right away because of limited vaccine supplies. An online scheduling system should be working sometime next week, he said.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting similarly frustrating experiences for patients at Sutter Health and Stanford Health Care. Sutter told the paper it would be staffing an appointment line over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend and that an online portal would be available soon.
—Polly Stryker and Jon Brooks