Comment by crazcarl

The national government is providing the drug for free and thus no one is allowed to charge for it. The provider can bill for the administration of the vaccine. If a patient has insurance, the admin is billed to the insurance. If not, it's billed to a government program called HRSA. At my hospital I have been told that if any insurance company tries to pass on a portion of the administration as copay/coinsurance/deductible that we need to flag that payment to call the insurance company because they aren't allowed to do that.