Home Health & Hospice Week

Tip: Try to team up with partner facilities.

While COVID-19 vaccinations for home health, hospice, and caregiver staff carry on, it’s going better in some places than others.

For example: In Florida, health staff are having a tough time accessing the vaccine, Shayna Adaniel with BrightStar Care in Delray Beach told WPBF 25 News. While Florida rules prioritize home health staff, “we are just not being recognized as such,” Adaniel said.

“From the beginning, home health has kind of fallen into this blind spot,” Adaniel told the news station. “The same way that health care workers in hospitals and long-term care facilities are being offered the ability to be vaccinated, it’s really unacceptable that our home care nurses and certified nursing assistants and home health aides aren’t being offered the same thing,” she said.

On the other side of the state, Seasons Hospice and Palliative Care of Pinellas County has had to “get creative” to secure vaccinations for its visiting staff, reports the Tampa Bay Times. The hospice reached out to its partner facilities to get staff inoculated at their vaccination clinics.

“Some hospices have been able to get their immunizations through long-term care facilities,” Paul A. Ledford, CEO of the Florida Hospice and Palliative Care Association, told the Times. “Some have been able to get them through hospitals. But for the most part, hospice employees have not had access to the immunizations statewide.”

On Jan. 21, some Seasons staff received their first doses of coronavirus vaccine thanks to Heron House Assisted Living in Largo, the newspaper reports.

In Minnesota, staff from St. Croix Hospice in Rochester were able to get their vaccinations on Jan. 26, reports KTTC TV.

In Oregon, Oregon Health & Science University and the Service Employees International Union launched a drive-thru vaccination clinic at Portland International Airport. But some grumbles arose over only SEIU members being invited to the clinic, reports the Willamette Week newspaper.

OHSU plans to invite home care workers from other organizations and agencies going forward, spokesperson Tamara Hargens-Bradley told the Week.

Tap Free Education Tools Aimed At Aides

While some home health, hospice, and caregiver staff are desperate to get their vaccinations, others remain hesitant — putting their own and their patients’ health at risk. To combat that hesitancy, multiple organizations are mounting educational campaigns to help persuade staff to receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

In addition to efforts from the National Association for Home Care & Hospice and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization profiled in earlier Home Care Week by AAPC issues, the Home Care Association of America is offering a marketing tool to educate caregivers about the vaccine at https://employer.mycnajobs.com/vaccine-toolkit-download. “Only 35 percent of caregivers indicate they are planning to get the vaccine,” HCAA notes. “Most want more information.”

And the Partnership for Medicaid Home-Based Care has launched a “Be Wise, Immunize” program and website. The site offers vaccine facts, stories from aides who have received the vaccine, and links to each state’s vaccination plan at https://bewiseimmunize.com/resources.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services has made it easier for providers and entities to schedule COVID-19 vaccination shots. The HHS Office for Civil Rights “will exercise its enforcement discretion and will not impose penalties for violations of the HIPAA Rules on covered health care providers or their business associates in connection with the good faith use of online or web-based scheduling applications (WBSA) … for the scheduling of individual appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations during the COVID-19 nationwide public health emergency,” OCR says in a release.

Tip: The discretion only goes for scheduling, OCR stresses. “Do not use the WBSA for any purpose other than scheduling for COVID-19 vaccination unless full HIPAA compliance has been assessed,” advise attorneys Mark Swearingen, Charise Frazier, Stephane Fabus, and Patricia Connelly with law firm Hall Render in online analysis.