UPDATE (WKOW) -- Even though vaccination has been opened up to more people, hospitals are still asking you to be patient when it's your turn.
Area hospitals have learned how to streamline the process of administering the coronavirus vaccine with their staff.
Starting Monday, Jan. 25,people over 65 will be able to start getting vaccinated too.
"We are working busily right now finalizing our plans to expand our vaccine to our patients," David Childers, VP of Clinic Operations at UnityPoint Health Meriter, said.
He says roughly 6,300 of their patients are in that over 65, phase 1b, group.
He's urging people not to call in to schedule an appointment, hospital staff will reach out to them.
"We'll be using all of the avenues that we have to contact our patients including phone email direct mail and our electronic patient portal called My UnityPoint," Childers said.
Like Meriter,UW Health will be reaching out to patientsthrough the MyChart system.
However, they will also be allowing patients to sign up to sign up for a waitlist, but that's only for very specific use cases.
"This is for people who are flexible enough to be able to get a vaccine on a very short notice, in the order of a couple of hours," Dr. Jeff Pothof with UW Health said. "Once we realize we're going to have an extra dose, we'll work through that waitlist looking for people who can get to a vaccination site in very short order to get that dose."
Dr. Pothof says that situation will be rare.
For the most part both hospitals ask for patience as it will be a long process to get everyone vaccinated.
"We're just trying to devote all of our resources to working through that list but even with a lot of resources devoted to it, it's going to take quite a bit of time to get through that many names," Dr. Pothof said.
SSM Health also tells 27 Newsthat they will be reaching out to patients through their online portal in phases.
Hospitals are still evaluating the best way to decide who gets vaccination priority, either by random choice or analyzing each patients specific situation.
More at WKOW 27 News