Home care and home healthcare agencies should prepare for federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates to take effect starting next month, despite legal challenges.
That advice came Monday from Mary Carr, vice president of regulatory affairs for the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. During a webinar, she addressed questions surrounding a legal challenge issued over the weekend that temporarily halts the vaccine mandate issued by the Occupational Health & Safety Administration for businesses with 100 or more employees.
“I would function as this is going to go forward,” Carr counseled members. “We fully expected OSHA to have lawsuits and that’s where some of the authority has been questioned.”
Two distinct mandates
Last Thursday, OSHA issued a final rule on the mandate that requires workers at businesses with 100 more or employees to get their first COVID-19 shots early next month and be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4, 2022. Workers who choose to forego the shots must get tested weekly at their own expense. On Saturday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana granted an emergency stay of the requirement. State attorneys general in a number of Republican-led states have also said they would challenge the mandate.
On the same day the OSHA mandate was released, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a similar mandate covering workers at Medicare and Medicaid-certified healthcare providers. That rule, however, does not allow for testing. Carr doubted the CMS mandate could be challenged in court, saying the agency has the authority to issue such requirements.
Federal versus state law
A number of states, including New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have instituted their own vaccine mandates. But CMS clarified last week that the federal mandate preempts state law under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“States cannot preempt federal law for Medicare and Medicaid purposes,” Jonathan Blum, CMS principal deputy administrator and chief operating officer administrator of CMS said in an exclusive interview with McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. “These rules will govern all facilities that participate within the Medicaid, Medicare programs, even if they reside in states that have taken other actions. But states cannot preempt federal laws that govern Medicare and Medicaid rules.”
