The federal government issued updated guidance to surveyors on nursing home staff vaccination requirements, including the recognition of “good faith efforts” by facilities to be in compliance with the mandated guidelines.
Facility staff vaccination rates under 100% “of unexpected staff” is considered noncompliance, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) memo. However, if a facility has implemented a plan to achieve the 100% vaccination rate they would not be subject to an enforcement action.
Some examples of such “good faith efforts” include if a facility has no or limited access to the vaccine and has documented attempts to get the vaccine or if the facility provides evidence that they have taken aggressive steps to have all staff vaccinated.
“For example, if the POC [plan of correction] demonstrates that the facility staff vaccination rate is 90% or more, and all policies and procedures were developed and implemented, this would be considered a good faith effort and the deficiency could be cleared, with the facility returned to substantial compliance,” CMS wrote.
The changes are tied, at least in part, due to relatively low hospitalizations and deaths nationwide, according to the federal agency.
“This is a testament to the tools and protections in place today, particularly the work that federal, state, local, and private partners have done to get over 226 million people vaccinated and over 111 million boosted,” CMS wrote in the memo.
CMS directed surveyors to cite tag F888 noncompliance at severity level 1. Those situations that are considered “egregious noncompliance” should be cited at severity level 2. One example of this would be if more than 50% of staff are unvaccinated.
CMS also noted that outside of vaccination compliance, surveyors should also closely investigate infection prevention and control practices at tag F880 to ensure proper practices are being used — such as the proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other transmission precautions.
The Biden administration last year announced that all health care workers who worked for providers that received Medicare or Medicaid funding were required to get vaccinated. No such mandates have been put in place regarding any of the subsequent boosters.
Roughly 86.9% of residents and 86.8% of staff have completed their primary vaccinations, but only 39.8% of residents and 27.2% of staff are up to date per facility with their vaccines, according to the most recent CMS data.
The White House has also ramped up its efforts to provide access to the most recent Covid-19 vaccines, including in nursing homes.
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