Home Health & Hospice Week

Don’t let regulatory confusion slow your vaccination roll.

Whether you give the shots yourself or coordinate for staff and patients to receive them from another party, it’s time to get vaccinations back into high gear.

The Food and Drug Administration has amended its Emergency Use Authorization “for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to allow a single booster dose, to be administered for individuals 65 years of age and older, as well as in populations at high risk due to underlying medical conditions or due to institutional or occupational exposure, such as health care workers, teachers and prisons,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra notes in a release. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has “determined that workers in high-risk jobs should be eligible for boosters, closely aligning with the FDA authorization,” Becerra says.

Side note: Walensky’s decision was unusual, because while the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended boosters for a number of high-risk groups, it did not include healthcare workers in the recommendation. Walensky overruled that advice.

The boosters are authorized at six months after recipients’ “primary series,” which is pretty much now for many patients and staff.

Regardless of that controversy, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “will continue to provide coverage for this critical protection from the virus, including booster doses, without cost sharing,” it notes in a release. “CMS is ensuring that cost is not a barrier to access, including for boosters,” says CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. “CMS will pay Medicare vaccine providers who administer approved COVID-19 boosters, enabling people to access these vaccines at no cost.”