Vaccine Ordering and Inventory

Vaccines for Children (VFC) providers must use the New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) to order, report doses administered, and maintain inventory for publicly funded vaccine. Providers may place an order as often as every 30 days. Provider orders are evaluated by NYS Vaccine Program staff based on the number of vaccine doses administered reported in NYSIIS, current provider inventory, the quantity ordered, and the amount of vaccine wasted over the past 12 months. Providers are encouraged to order vaccine at reasonable intervals to reduce the risk of excess ordering, which can result in vaccine expiration. NYS Vaccine Program staff may reduce orders to address over-ordering and/or lack of availability of vaccine. For more information on how vaccine orders are evaluated, please see the NYS VFC Order Review Process. (PDF)

Visit the NYSIIS Training page for more information.

Expired and Spoiled Vaccine

All publicly funded, nonviable vaccine must be reported to the NYS VFC Program on a regular basis. Return-eligible vaccine should be reported in NYSIIS as least monthly.

NYS VFC providers must use the New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) to submit returns and wastage requests for publicly funded nonviable vaccine.

For instructions and information on how to use NYSIIS to report returns and wastage, refer to training NYSVFC-13: Vaccine Returns and Wastage.

Nonviable vaccine refers to vaccine that can no longer be used for any reason including expiration, spoilage due to temperature excursion, or vaccine that has been opened/damaged (e.g., broken, drawn up but not used).

  • Nonviable, unopened and intact publicly-funded vaccine vials and syringes must be returned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Centralized Distributor, McKesson Specialty, for federal excise tax credit.
  • Nonviable vaccine vials and syringes that have been opened or damaged should be discarded as medical waste. Viable vaccine and privately funded vaccine are not eligible to be returned to McKesson Specialty.

Vaccine Borrowing

VFC providers are expected to maintain adequate inventories of vaccine to administer to patients with private insurance as well as patients eligible for publicly funded (VFC, CHIP or State-funded) vaccine. Publicly funded vaccine cannot be used as a replacement system for a provider's privately purchased inventory. Borrowing vaccine must not prevent a VFC, CHIP or underinsured child from receiving needed vaccination because the publicly funded vaccine was administered to a non-eligible child.

Borrowing can occur only when there is a lack of publicly funded vaccine due to unexpected circumstances such as a delayed vaccine shipment or the vaccine spoiled while in-transit to the provider. All instances of borrowing must be properly documented, reported and replaced. A Vaccine Borrowing Report (PDF) must be completed when either privately-purchased vaccine is administered to a child eligible for publicly-purchased vaccine or publicly-purchased vaccine (VFC, CHIP, State-funded) is administered to a privately-insured child.

Vaccine Restitution

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requires the NYS Vaccine Program to implement a vaccine restitution policy. Each provider is given a vaccine wastage allowance of 5 to 10% based on practice size. Vaccine wastage is calculated for a 12-month period as: the number of vaccine doses wasted, expired or lost divided by the number of vaccine doses ordered.

Vaccine wastage includes all vaccine lost due to temperature excursion or expiration resulting from provider neglect. Providers who meet the minimum storage and handling requirements and lose vaccine due to equipment failure or power outage will not have those losses counted against their wastage allowance.

VFC providers are expected to use as much of the vaccine as possible before it expires and are encouraged to run a Reminder/ Recall report in NYSIIS to identify and contact patients who are due or past due for immunizations. Visit the NYSIIS training page for tutorials on using the Reminder/Recall tool.

Contact the NYS Vaccine Program at 1-800-543-7468 or nyvfc@health.ny.gov for more information.