The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) emergency rule on COVID-19 vaccines for health care providers has passed its last legal hurdle, at least for the time being. A federal judge has dismissed the last pending lawsuit challenging the mandate, brought by the State of Texas. The rule is now enforceable in all 50 states.
Texas filed suit in December against U.S. Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra to block the requirement. This separate case was not among those the Supreme Court heard last week, when it upheld the CMS rule and shot down the mandate from the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration.
“Of course the vaccine mandate goes further than what the [Secretary of Health & Human Services] has done in the past to implement infection control. But he has never had to address an infection problem of this scale and scope before,” the Supreme Court justices wrote in their CMS decision. “In any event, there can be no doubt that addressing infection problems in Medicare and Medicaid facilities is what he does.”
In the Texas case, the U.S. District Court for the northern portion of the state had issued a preliminary injunction preventing CMS from implementing the mandate until the case was ultimately decided. That injunction is now lifted.
Texas will join the other states that had been under injunction in meeting CMS compliance deadlines. Health care providers in those states by Feb. 14 must establish plans and procedures to ensure their staff are vaccinated and have their employees fully vaccinated by March 15.
These deadlines apply to 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.
In all other states and the District of Columbia, hospice staff covered by the regulation must receive one dose by Jan. 27 and be fully vaccinated by Feb. 28.
The agency indicated that anything less than 100% staff vaccination would be considered non-compliance. For hospices, potential penalties could include monetary fines, denial or payments or termination of the providers’ participation in Medicare or Medicaid, which CMS said would be a last resort. Health care providers would have an opportunity to take corrective action to ensure compliance prior to such a termination.
“Vaccines are proven to reduce the risk of severe disease,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a statement. The prevalence of the virus and its ever-evolving variants in health care settings continues to increase the risk of staff contracting and transmitting COVID-19, putting their patients, families, and our broader communities at risk.”
