Mike Wolanin | The Republic Columbus Regional Health employee Hetty Bateman holds her COVID-19 vaccination card before being inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a Columbus Regional Health facility in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020.
One day after the deadline for thousands of local health care workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit an approved exemption under a federal mandate, two hospitals in the Columbus area say they are in full compliance.
The federal mandate requires health care facilities that receive funds from the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs to ensure all employees are vaccinated, a measure that will affect millions of health care workers across the country, including more than 3,850 in the Columbus area.
Health care workers in Indiana who work at facilities that participate in the federal programs were required by Tuesday to be fully vaccinated or submit an exemption due to a sincerely held religious belief, certain medical conditions or a recent COVID-19 infection.
Health care facilities that do not comply with the federal requirement risk possible denials and termination from the Medicare and Medicaid programs, though the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says it plans to begin enforcement with encouragement rather than a heavy hand.
Columbus Regional Health said about 88% of its roughly 2,750-person workforce was fully vaccinated, with the remaining 12% — some 330 workers — filing exemptions, claiming that the shots were against their religion or that they had a medical condition that prevented them from getting vaccinated, hospital officials said.
Fewer than 10 members of CRH’s workforce received a temporary deferral, meaning that did not need to immediately get vaccinated because they recently had COVID-19, a monoclonal antibody treatment or are dealing with some sort of temporary medical condition that a doctor says warrants not getting vaccinated for the time being.
CRH’s workforce includes about 2,200 employees, as well as a few hundred contractors, volunteers and non-employed providers who have medical rights to treat patients at the hospital.
“We’re pleased with that number,” said CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue, referring to the 88% who are fully vaccinated. “It reflects what we’ve seen, especially in our area of the nation. We seem to be benchmarking or on par with other health systems.”
Schneck Medical Center in Seymour, which has about 1,100 employees, said it was in full compliance but did not reply to questions about what percentage of its workforce had filed exemptions.
The mandate, which seeks to reduce further strains on the health care system due to workers getting sick, takes effect nearly two months after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge brought by several Republican-led states, including Indiana, The Associated Press reported.
The legal challenge argued, in part, that the mandate exceeded federal executive powers and infringed on states’ rights to regulate public health matters, according to wire reports. However, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to allow the CMS vaccine mandate to go into effect.
In November, CRH and Schneck announced in a joint statement that they would comply with the federal mandate, in part because “the majority of patients served by Columbus Regional Health and Schneck Medical Center are covered by Medicare or Medicaid.”
“It is imperative our organizations remain a provider in these programs so we can continue to provide care to our communities,” the statement said.
CRH later paused its requirement as the legal challenge made its way through the federal court system before resuming the policy on Jan. 14, the day after the Supreme Court ruling.
CRH officials said more people filed for exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine than for other vaccinations that are required as a term of employment, including influenza, tuberculosis and hepatitis.
However, officials were unable to provide the number of exemptions for the other shots.
The update from the local hospitals comes as COVID-19 hospitalizations at CRH approach their lowest level in about seven months. On March 4, there were nine people hospitalized with COVID-19 at CRH, the first time that the hospital system reported fewer than 10 coronavirus hospitalizations since early August.
CRH is “cautiously optimistic” but officials “don’t know yet what the next fall and winter might bring,” DeClue said.
“The more fully vaccinated total workforce members that we can have, the better we’re going to feel about this moving forward,” DeClue said. “We would like to get to the point where we can begin rolling back some of those safety measures and processes and protocols that we’ve had in place for two years now.”
“We’re still not out of this,” DeClue added. “We’re still vulnerable to spikes.”
