There has been a significant conversation related to the CMS COVID Vaccine mandate lately. CMS issued a mandate in October 2021 that all facilities that receive funding from Medicare and Medicaid must require all staff to be vaccinated, or meet exemption criteria with documentation by a set deadline. There were several challenges to this mandate in the court systems. The Supreme Court allowed the CMS mandate to move forward in 49 states with their ruling on January 13th. On January 20th, the Federal Court in Texas allowed the CMS mandate to proceed in this state.
Our continued accreditation with CMS is dependent upon our compliance with the vaccine mandate. Although we’re acutely aware of the varying political and personal issues surrounding this mandate, EHS must comply with the CMS Vaccine mandate to assure that we can continue to provide care to our patients as well as assure that our staff is financially secure.
We have made every effort to protect the independence of all our staff and to respect their personal decisions. Now that all the legal challenges have been exhausted, we must move forward with the implementation and enforcement of the CMS vaccine mandate. The policy is available to all EHS staff through ADP and everyone will need to be fully compliant with the policy by March 15, 2022. To reach compliance, staff members must receive the first vaccine dose by February 21, 2022 and the second dose by March 15th, 2022.
