Home Health & Hospice Week

Whether you want to use financial or lifestyle incentives may depend on your audience.

With COVID-19 vaccinations now widely available and patients requesting vaccinated staff, many home health and hospice agencies are looking to boost vaccination rates in their ranks.

On May 5, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a social media video “highlighting staff, also referred to as Community Champions, who moved from being initially uncertain about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine to accepting the vaccine — and encouraging their peers to do the same,” the agency reports. The video focuses on long-term care staff, but home health and hospice employees may find it persuasive as well.

The two-minute video, which features staff including a director of nursing, nursing assistant, and office worker, is at https://youtu.be/k0WbAhveyDY.

And: The CMS Office of Minority Health will host a Building COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence webinar on Thurs. May 13. The session led by OMH director and physician LaShawn McIver will “share information and resources to help you address vaccine hesitancy in your community,” CMS says. A Food and Drug Administration physician will give an overview of vaccines and their safety and the event will end with an idea-sharing session. “This webinar will equip you to speak persua­sively about the COVID-19 vaccine,” CMS says.

Registration for the OMH webinar is at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/6555661473692736014.

Providers may also want to look at what states are doing, according to press reports. New Jersey has launched a “Shot and A Beer” program where vaccinated residents can get a free beer at certain breweries. Maryland is giving state workers a $100 bonus for vaccinations. And West Virginia will give $100 savings bonds to residents age 16 to 35 who get vaccinated.

There may be merit in both the educational and financial routes of persuasion, indicates a recent survey from The U.C.L.A. project. Unvaccinated respondents who said they would be more likely to get a shot for cash skewed Democrat, while being able to relax masking and social distancing rules was more persuasive for unvaccinated Republicans, the survey showed, according to The New York Times.

For agencies that want to use the stick instead of the carrot, requiring COVID-19 vaccinations is a valid legal strategy if done with care, says attorney Matt Kreiser with Washington, D.C. law firm PilieroMazza. “In March 2020, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) determined that COVID posed a ‘direct threat’ to the health and safety of the nation’s employees, paving the way for its December 2020 guidance advising employers that they may adopt mandatory COVID vaccination policies,” Kreiser notes.

Careful: “However, the EEOC warned employers that they must permit exemptions to their vaccination requirements as an accommodation for their employees with disabilities, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), or sincerely held religious beliefs, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), unless doing so would cause an undue burden on business operations,” Kreiser highlights.