By the end of November, all federal employees must be vaccinated or qualify for exceptions. State Laws and Mandates: Handouts for Patients and Staff: Technically Speaking: Honor Rolls for Patient Safety . ICRs Regarding Staff Education Requirements in 483.80(d)(3)(ii) Through (iv), 4. These recommendations, which emphasize close monitoring of residents of long-term care facilities for symptoms of COVID-19, universal source control, physical distancing, hand hygiene, and optimizing engineering controls, are intended to help protect staff and residents from exposure. Interim Guidance on Duration of Isolation and Precautions for Adults with COVID-19 | CDC , https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isolation.html. It could backfire, I feared, in this political climate. When a state inspector visited Truman Lake Manor in December, a coronavirus outbreak had infected 26 of the 60 residents and about a quarter of the staff within the previous few weeks. 84. Regulations by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will require 17 million employees of Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals and health care facilities to be vaccinated. While the existing requirements should ensure that ICFs-IID provide clients with a COVID-19 vaccine, we note that it does not address vaccine education. Vaccine incentive programs are governed by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) prohibition against health status discrimination. For all LTC facilities, the annual burden would be 93,600 (6 hours 15,600) hours at an estimated cost of $6,271,200 ($402 15,600). Likewise, we are revising the ICF-IID Conditions of Participation to require that facilities must educate all clients and staff about COVID-19 vaccines and offer vaccination to all clients and staff. In subsequent years the burden for all facilities would be 34,632 (6 5,772) burden hours at an estimated cost of $2,320,344 (6 $67 5,772). Most LTC facilities participated in the Pharmacy Partnerships but the Partnerships concluded in March 2021. Health care workers employed in these facilities who are not currently vaccinated are urged to begin the process immediately. Statement in compliance with Texas Rules of Professional Conduct. Administration of any vaccine includes appropriate monitoring of vaccine recipients for adverse reactions. Even regular volunteers may enter the ICF-IID infrequently. The updated Moderna vaccine is available for people 6 and older. Each manufacturer is also developing educational and training resources for its individual vaccine candidate. Hence, we assume that the percent of persons who were vaccinated by the end of March is only 70 percent of long-term care residents, 40 percent of skilled nursing care residents, and 60 percent of the LTC facility staff serving both types of residents. Assuming 5,772 ICFs-IID, for the first year the burden for all facilities would be 60,606 burden hours (10.5 5,772 facilities) at an estimated cost of $4,060,602 (10.5 $67 5,772). For example, when the Pharmacy Partnership completed its time commitment in LTC facilities, it probably had seen only about half of the persons who will reside or work in these facilities in 2021. Due to these high turnover rates, LTC facilities will require significantly more resident or staff vaccines compared to the total number of residents and staff in the facility at the beginning of the year. National reporting through NHSN, which is limited to enrolled health care providers, will allow CDC to examine vaccination coverage compared with community infection rates, to determine visitation and other COVID-19 infection prevention and control guidelines, including cohorting. As previously discussed, if there are treatment cost savings to hospitals and other care providers as a result of the vaccinations that will be made due to this rule, the treatment cost savings would in turn result in savings to payers. It also does not prevent individuals from responding to such a question. NLRB Propounds Expansive List of Potential U.S. Executive Branch Update April 28, 2023, Compliance Update Insights and Highlights April 2023, Early 2023 Delaware Corporate and M&A Law Review. The total burden estimate for the information collection burden in both LTC facilities and ICFs-IID in the first year is 1,277,874 hours (1,107,600 + 170,274) at an estimated cost of $91,250,874 ($79,825,200 + $11,425,674) and in subsequent years the burden is estimated at 866,580 hours (780,000 + 86,580) at a cost of $55,177,044 ($49,826,400 + $5,350,644). Timothy S. Jost, Emeritus Professor, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Timothy S. Jost, COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates and Incentives Under Federal Law, To the Point (blog), Commonwealth Fund, Oct. 22, 2021. https://doi.org/10.26099/x52e-x573, COVID-19, Government Programs & Policies, 2023 The Commonwealth Fund. We also waived the requirements at 483.420(a)(11) which requires clients have the opportunity to participate in social, religious, and community group activities. Screening individuals for currently suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19, previous allergic reactions, and administration of therapeutic treatments and services is important for determining whether these individuals are appropriate candidates for vaccination at any given time. Any vaccine that receives Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorization, through an EUA, or is licensed under a Biologics License Application (BLA), will be covered under Medicare as a preventive vaccine at no cost to beneficiaries. That is, individuals who work in the facility infrequently. We assume that the total number of individual employees is 50 percent higher than the full-time equivalent but that only half that number are primarily employed at only one nursing facility, two offsetting assumptions about the number of employees working at each facility (many employees are part-time consultants or the equivalent who serve multiple nursing facilities on a part-time basis).