The Biden administration has softened its language in an updated guidance on COVID-19 vaccination enforcement, telling surveyors to not cite nursing homes so long as “good faith efforts” are being made to vaccinate all their staff.
In a memo (pdf) released Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) says it still expects all long-term care and skilled nursing facilities to make sure their staff are vaccinated, unless otherwise exempted by law. A facility with “unexcepted staff” vaccination rates below 100 percent is considered noncompliant, and as a result, can risk being stripped of federal Medicare and Medicaid funds.
That being said, the federal agency also states that noncompliance with the vaccine mandate doesn’t always require enforcement. Specifically, surveyors are instructed to consider whether nursing homes are showing a “good faith effort” to achieve compliance before taking enforcement actions against them….