On September 9, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the emergency regulations requiring vaccinations for nursing home workers will be expanded to include hospitals, dialysis facilities, ambulatory surgical settings, and home health agencies, among others, as a condition for participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The decision was based on the continued and growing spread of the virus in health care settings, especially in parts of the U.S. with higher incidence of COVID-19.
CMS is developing an Interim Final Rule with Comment Period that will be issued in October. The compliance deadline within the rule is unknown, but we do not expect the compliance deadline to be any later than the end of 2021. We understand that the aim is for the rule to be uniform across all health care providers and rolled out at the same time. Read the full CMS release here.
In addition to the CMS mandate for vaccination of all Medicare and Medicaid health care providers, the U.S. Department of Labor will issue requirement for employers with over 100 employees to have vaccine mandates and/or testing. Also, all federal employees and contractors will also need to be vaccinated.
As more information becomes available we will keep you updated.