All states, territories now subject to CMS COVID-19 vaccination rule

by A.J. Plunkett (aplunkett@decisionhealth.com)

All U.S. states and territories are now subject to the CMS interim final rule requiring hospital staff to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

In a new memo to CMS state surveyors posted January 20, the agency added Texas as the final state subject to the rule after the last injunction was lifted from court challenges filed last year to the federal mandate.

The deadlines for having all staff vaccinated vary according to the version of the memo under which your state falls.

The first memo, which also outlined how the mandate was going to be surveyed and enforced, was published on December 28 and covered the 25 states and territories not subject to the injunctions.

The second memo was published January 14, following a Supreme Court decision lifting the injunction. CMS said it would enforce the vaccine mandate in all the other states, except Texas, which had a separate court challenge.

Soon after, The Joint Commission issued a statement noting that it was enforcing the mandate, per CMS instructions. DNV Healthcare, the Accreditation Commission for Health Care/HFAP, and the Center for Improvement in Healthcare Quality have all indicated they are also following CMS’ lead.

The third CMS memo was published January 20 and included Texas after the separate court challenge was effectively dropped.

The three CMS memos are all essentially the same, the difference being which states or territories were subject to enforcement. The memos stated that the deadlines for when staff were expected to be at least partially and then fully vaccinated were 30 and 60 days, respectively, from the publication of the memos.