Virginia Vaccines for Children

Manager: Crista Sullivan, MBA

The national Vaccines for Children (VFC) program was established to help raise childhood immunization rates in the United States and to keep children in their medical home.  The entitlement program is associated with each State’s Medicaid plan.  Children who are eligible for VFC vaccines are entitled to receive pediatric vaccines that are recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.  

Virginia Vaccines for Children’s (VVFC) program is managed by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), Division of Immunization (DOI).  Through utilization of private and public providers, the VVFC program and DOI reduce barriers to immunizations. DOI supplies federally and state purchased vaccine at no cost to public and private health care providers.  The VVFC program handles distribution of all vaccines provided by DOI, in addition to those for the VFC entitlement program. DOI, through relationships with public providers is able to serve populations in addition to VVFC eligible, such as children needing immunizations for school, and limited vaccines uninsured and underinsured for adults.  The vaccine supplied by the Division of Immunization is supplied at "no cost" to enrolled providers.

VVFC currently has over 900 facilities enrolled in the program as either a private facility or a public facility.

Eligibility for Vaccine Supplied by the Division of Immunization:

1. Federally vaccine-eligible children who are 18 years of age or younger and meet one or more of the following categories: i) enrolled in Medicaid ii) has no health insurance iii) is an American Indian or Alaskan Native iv) is underinsured and @ Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) or Rural Health Clinic (RHC) or Participating Public Hospital:  Children who have commercial (private) health insurance but the coverage does not include vaccines, children whose insurance covers only selected vaccines (VFC- eligible for non-covered vaccines only), or children whose insurance caps vaccine coverage at a certain amount-- once that coverage amount is reached, these children are categorized as underinsured.  Underinsured children are eligible to receive VFC vaccine only through a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) or Rural Health Clinic (RHC) or Participating Public Hospital.
2. State vaccine-eligible children 18 years of age or younger at a Local Health Department (LHD) who are not eligible for federal VFC funded vaccine and are receiving immunizations required for school i) DTaP, Hepatitis B, Hib, MMR, pneumococcal conjugate, Polio, Tdap, and Varicella vaccines  ii) HPV for females who are 11 or 12 years of age.
3. Uninsured or underinsured adults 19 years an up at FQHC/RHC/LHD/Participating Public Hospital i) receiving ACIP recommended vaccines.
   

VVFC distributes vaccines to private and public providers free of charge. A provider may not charge for the vaccine itself, but is permitted to charge an administration fee.

If you have any questions about VVFC, please call 1-800-568-1929 or 1-804-864-8055.