Health Law Advisor

As we previously reported, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS's) interim final rule (the “Rule”) requiring full COVID-19 vaccination for staff and others at Medicare- and Medicaid-certified providers and suppliers (i.e., the “vaccine mandate”) was effectively stayed nationwide on November 30, 2021, by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana (the “Louisiana Court”).  In yet another twist to the ongoing legal battles, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted the nationwide stay and held that the Louisiana Court only had authority to block the vaccine mandate in the fourteen plaintiff states that brought suit in that court. Those states are Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia.

Due to the litigation in the Eastern District of Missouri, as reported here, enforcement of the vaccine mandate is also blocked in ten other states:  Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.  In total, the vaccine mandate under the Rule is now stayed in twenty-four states, but is now in effect in the remaining twenty-six states.

The long-running saga of the Medicare appeals backlog added a new chapter that may give frustrated stakeholders a new remedy.[1]  On March 27, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a home health agency may pursue a claim against the Secretary of HHS for failing to provide a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge within a reasonable time.  Family Rehabilitation, Incorporated v. Azar, No. 17-11337 (5^th Cir., Mar. 27, 2018).

In this case, Family Rehabilitation (“Family”) received a notice from a Medicare Zone Integrity Program Contractor ...