Home Health & Hospice Week

TV station profiles patients rejecting unvaccinated home care nurse.

While lawsuits over COVID vaccination mandates wind their way through the courts and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services preps its rule on the topic, expect your agency’s vaccination rate to become a selling point — or the opposite.

For example: “Nearly 100 percent of home health aides at People Inc. are vaccinated, in line with state mandate” headlined a recent story by Buffalo, New York TV station WIVB about the home care agency. Other than one worker requesting a religious exemption, People Inc.’s vaccination rate was 100 percent, the agency’s Thomas Ess told the station.

Another mainstream press story highlights how important vaccination can be to patients. Patricia and Howard Winn, of Clarksville, Tennessee, have questioned home health workers about their vaccination status. Both of them contracted breakthrough COVID and Howard Winn was in the hospital intensive care unit with it for three weeks, reports TV station WTVF in Nashville.

When one of the home health workers said she wasn’t vaccinated and didn’t need the shot, “Pat just got all over her and told her to get out of here. We don’t want anybody who hasn’t had the vaccination, especially a health care worker,” Howard Winn told WTVF.

The nurse came from LHC Group Inc.-owned Tennova Home Health. An LHC Group spokesperson told WTVF that it encourages and recommends vaccination to its employees, but doesn’t require them at this time, and is awaiting the vaccination mandate rule from the government. LHC also has implemented “strict protocols for all clinicians regarding the use of personal protection equipment on patient visits — including the requirement for masks,” the LHC representative said.

Observers expect CMS to issue is vaccination mandate rule very soon.