Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Reinstates COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

Health care workers in a recent file photo. ARIANA DREHSLER/AFP via Getty Images

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in a policy reversal, announced on Dec. 28 that it would start enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate to facilities in half the U.S. states, where the mandate hasn’t been judicially enjoined.

CMS modified the compliance dates for the vaccine mandates. Facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare funding must comply with the mandate’s first phase, meaning that all health care staff has to have received the first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine by Jan. 27, 2022—or 30 days after the CMS memorandum (pdf) was issued.

Those facilities will have to comply with the CMS mandate’s second phase, meaning health care workers need to receive the second dose by Feb. 28, 2022, according to the memo.

Earlier this month, a CMS spokesperson told The Epoch Times that it suspended enforcement of the vaccine mandate for health care workers “pending future developments in litigation.” It came after several courts issued injunctions against the rule.

But now, according to its latest directive, a health care facility will have to show that “policies and procedures are developed and implemented for ensuring all facility staff” under the agency’s mandate “regardless of clinical responsibility or patient or resident contact are vaccinated for COVID-19,” the memo stipulates.

The facility also must show that “100 percent of staff have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, or have a pending request for, or have been granted a qualifying exemption, or identified as having a temporary delay as recommended by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” CMS’s directive says.

If fewer than 100 percent of staff are compliant with the mandate, “the facility is non-compliant under the rule,” according to CMS. “The facility will receive notice of their non-compliance with the 100 percent standard. A facility that is above 80 percent and has a plan to achieve a 100 percent staff vaccination rate within 60 days would not be subject to additional enforcement action.”

Under the mandate, a facility that isn’t in compliance with the rule will be at risk of losing its federal Medicare or Medicaid funding.

The CMS vaccine mandate will now affect the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, the guidance doesn’t currently apply in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, according to CMS.

In states where the vaccine mandate can’t be enforced, CMS surveyors “should not undertake any efforts” to bring facilities under compliance, the memo says.