Home Health & Hospice Week

Heads up: You’re supposed to already be complying with the ETS.

The DOL Occupational Safety and Health Adminis­tration has extended the deadline to submit comments on the COVID-19 ETS, but the deadlines for compliance with the new requirement stand.

OSHA “will publish a notice in the Federal Register to extend the comment period for the COVID-19 healthcare emergency temporary standard (ETS) to August 20, 2021,” OSHA said in July 8 release. “OSHA is extending the comment period by 30 days to allow stakeholders additional time to review the ETS and collect information and data necessary for comment.”

Reminder: In June, OSHA issued the ETS that loads healthcare providers up with many new requirements regarding leave pay, staff training, recordkeeping, and much more (see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXX, Nos. 22 and 23). It contained two deadlines for requirements, July 5 and July 21.

Early this month, the American Hospital Association “urged OSHA to delay by six months its compliance dates for implementing the ETS to give ... time to implement the policy’s many new requirements,” the trade group notes on its website. LeadingAge, the affiliate of the Visiting Nurse Associations of America/ElevatingHome, made the same request in a July 2 letter to OSHA, it notes on its website.

No-Go: “In a letter sent to AHA, OSHA said it would not extend the compliance dates,” AHA reports.

But OSHA did grant AHA and LeadingAge-VNAA’s request for the one-month delay on comments, both associations note. “The short time frame makes it unrealistic to give thorough and thoughtful comments,” LeadingAge’s Katie Smith Sloan told OSHA in the letter. “An additional 30 days would allow us to more adequately gauge how these requirements impact members.”

Note: See ETS materials including links to an employee training presentation, sample screening questionnaire, and more at www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets.