Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

During the pandemic, long-term care facilities struggled to care for the nation’s most vulnerable patients. Sadly, the death toll was disproportionately high in nursing homes, and the feds are looking at the correlation between low COVID-19 vaccination rates and high death rates.

Under the recently added Work Plan Active Item W-00-22-31560, the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) will investigate the COVID-19 vaccination status of nursing homes’ staff.

Why? “Data reported by nursing homes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network identified that COVID-19 infections among nursing home residents were higher in nursing homes with lower vaccination coverage among staff,” OIG says. “The data also indicates that while nursing homes have made significant progress in vaccinating their residents, approximately one in five nursing home staff were not vaccinated as of the end of 2021.”

Reminder: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccination mandates require that healthcare organizations vaccinate their staff for COVID-19, and the final date for all states completing phase 2 is March 21 (see Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement, Vol. 48, Nos. 2 & 3). Though the regulations allow nursing homes to offer exemptions for medical or religious reasons, they “also require nursing homes to track and securely document the vaccination status of staff, exemptions requested, and exemptions granted,” the Work Plan report notes.

OIG will audit the nursing home workers’ vaccination status as well as the facilities’ compliance with the tracking and documentation side of the regulations.

Review the Work Plan Active Item at https://oig.hhs.gov/reports-and-publications/workplan/summary/wp-summary-0000664.asp.