Medicare requires nursing homes to report vaccinations

Medicare will require nursing homes to report COVID-19 vaccination rates for residents and staff, the government said Tuesday. Officials hope to nudge facilities to keep giving shots, as the worst ravages of the pandemic ease but the danger of a rebound still lurks.

“We’re hoping to drive increased vaccination rates among residents and staff, as well as transparency for residents and their families,” Dr. Lee Fleisher, chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told The Associated Press.

Medicare’s move to sustain the pace of vaccinations came as the initial effort to get shots to nursing homes across the country has wound down. That partnership between the government and retail pharmacy giants CVS and Walgreens is being succeeded by an ongoing collaboration with specialized long-term care pharmacies that cater to the needs of the nursing-home industry. Assisted-living facilities and other care centers serving older people can also participate.

A smooth transition will be critical, because the coronavirus is far from eradicated, even as new residents are being admitted to long-term care facilities and staffing ebbs and flows.

People living in longterm care facilities have borne a heavy toll from the pandemic. They represent about 1% of the U.S. population, but accounted for roughly 1 in 3 deaths, according to previous estimates from the COVID Tracking Project.

“This is an important development that is months overdue,” said David Grabowski, a Harvard health policy professor who has tracked the industry’s struggles with the outbreak. “Many of us argued that this information should have been published starting in December when the federal long-term care vaccination effort began.”

Nursing homes will now be required to submit weekly vaccination numbers for residents and staff to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That requirement will take effect within two weeks. Medicare officials say it may take two to four more weeks after that for the data to start flowing.

The plan is to post facility-level information on the internet so residents and families can easily access the details from Medicare’s “Compare Care” website.

“This action will give us much greater insight into the levels of vaccination,” said Medicare’s Fleisher.

By being able to monitor vaccinations across the industry, health officials will be able to direct vaccines to nursing homes that appear to be lagging.

For example, a new AP analysis of nursing homes in New York found that rates of vaccination have been far from even across the state. Overall, 79% of residents were fully vaccinated, as well as 55% of staff. But in Brooklyn, the corresponding vaccination rates were 63% for residents and 40% for staff.