HHS will pay doctors to file VAERS reports on suspected harms

HHS laid out four parts in a press announcement the following Thursday:

• Paid reporting. Doctors would be reimbursed for time spent submitting suspected vaccine-related injuries to VAERS. HHS says this will lower barriers and encourage more documentation.
• A new NIH clinic. The National Institutes of Health has opened a clinic on its Bethesda, Maryland, campus to study and care for patients with health problems after vaccination.
• A VAERS update. The reporting system itself will be changed to make it more accessible.
• Health record rules. Electronic health records will be required to capture vaccine-related adverse events, which HHS says will give doctors a fuller patient history.

Kennedy framed the plan as a matter of listening to families. In the announcement, he said patients reporting injuries should not be dismissed and that the goal is to make vaccines safer and earn back trust in public health agencies.

HHS hasn’t explained the details. A news report said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which sets many billing rules, may create a new billing code so doctors can charge for the time. There is no published cost, no start date and no formal rule yet. The next sign of movement will be a proposal in formal rulemaking.

Some doctors question the need. One obstetrics professor who served on the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee said filing a VAERS report was not time consuming, and that being paid would be a nice perk but he sees reporting as a professional duty.

VAERS has been run jointly by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration since 1990. It works like a wide net. Patients, family members, doctors and drug makers can all submit reports, and none are checked before they go in. That openness is deliberate: it helps officials spot rare warning signs early.

The trade-off is that a report is not evidence. The CDC says plainly on its website that a VAERS report does not mean a vaccine caused the problem, and its reviews find most reports are not actually linked to vaccination. Even so, the raw numbers are often cited by anti-vaccine activists, including in lawsuits seeking compensation, as if they proved danger.

VAERS is also only one layer. The CDC and FDA run several other systems, including V-safe, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Project and the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which works with 13 sites to scan health record data each week for rare and serious problems. Supporters of the current setup point to the COVID-19 vaccines: these systems picked up myocarditis in young men at roughly 1 in 20,000 and blood clots tied to the Johnson and Johnson shot at about 1 in 500,000.

The clinic opened on October 5 with a ribbon-cutting attended by Kennedy and other senior officials, but the opening was not publicly announced until later that week. A parents’ roundtable at the event featured families who believe their children were harmed by vaccines.

Key details are still missing. HHS has not published the clinic’s budget or funding source, how patients will be chosen, how many it will enroll, its research protocol, or who will review its findings. It is described as an observational site, meaning researchers follow patients rather than test treatments. That kind of research can describe symptoms, but on its own it usually can’t show that a vaccine caused a condition.

For now, nothing changes about vaccine schedules or insurance coverage. The clinic’s opening doesn’t alter any recommendation, and most side effects from shots are mild and pass quickly, the CDC says.

If you think you or your child had a reaction after a shot, you can already talk to a clinician and file a VAERS report yourself; you don’t need a doctor to do it. People who believe they were seriously injured can look into the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault process handled through the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Trouble breathing, swelling of the face or throat, or rapidly worsening symptoms after any vaccine need emergency care.

Critics worry about the bigger picture. The American Medical Association said investigating possible side effects is essential for trust, but warned that undermining confidence in vaccines will lower immunization rates and bring back preventable diseases. Several vaccine experts said the plan duplicates existing systems and may add confusion rather than knowledge. The announcement comes during the country’s largest measles outbreak in years, with more than 4,000 U.S. cases this year.