TMH Must Comply with New Vaccine Mandate or Lose Federal Funds

Recently the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new rules related to COVID-19 vaccinations which impacts the current Tallahassee Memorial Hospital policy.

TMH’s previous vaccination policy required vaccination but also recognized natural immunity.

The CMS rule requires healthcare workers at all healthcare facilities who participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs to be fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022. 

The CMS rule provides for limited vaccination exemptions which include exemptions based on recognized medical conditions or religious beliefs, observances or practices. Facilities must develop a similar process or policy for permitting exemptions that aligns with federal law.

The rules does not include testing as an alternative to vaccination.

The rule notes that CMS will ensure compliance through established survey and enforcement processes. If a provider or supplier does not meet the requirements, it will first be cited as being noncompliant and will have an opportunity to comply before CMS takes additional action, which could include termination of the facility’s Medicare/Medicaid provider agreement.

Stephanie Derzypolski, Vice President & Chief Communication Officer at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare stated in a release that as “a healthcare facility, we have an obligation to provide access to care for elderly patients who receive Medicare and other vulnerable populations who receive Medicaid.  In order to provide care to these most vulnerable populations who receive care through these federal programs, TMH must comply with this regulation.”

The full TMH statement is provided below. 

On November 4, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released two new rules concerning mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. The CMS rule applies to all healthcare facilities, including TMH and overrides our previous policy which required vaccination but also recognized natural immunity. Since COVID-19 vaccines became available, TMH has worked hard to educate and strongly encourage our colleagues to receive the vaccine. 

The CMS federal rule requires healthcare workers at all healthcare facilities who participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs to be fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022. 

As a healthcare facility, we have an obligation to provide access to care for elderly patients who receive Medicare and other vulnerable populations who receive Medicaid.  In order to provide care to these most vulnerable populations who receive care through these federal programs, TMH must comply with this regulation. 

Steve Stewart

Steve Stewart is the founder and editor of Tallahassee Reports which began in 2009 as an online blog. Steve received a Bachelors Degree from Clemson University in 1984 and a Masters degree in Political Science from FSU in 1990. He has been involved with state and local politics since arriving in Tallahassee in 1989.

View all posts by Steve Stewart →

16 Comments

  1. Tom
    Tom

    I here management is pushing religious exemption to those who don't want the vax.
    about 20-30 percent of staff standing firm against the JAB!! Good for them.

  2. Jon
    Jon

    This article didnt age well. OSHA suspends mandate. Hope nobody ran out to get their govt injection.

  3. A Skeptic
    A Skeptic

    Last Friday a Federal Appeals Court judge found that OSHA had overstepped its authority in ordering all companies with more than 100 employee to force "vaccinations" or face onerous fines. With precedence now established, this is headed for the SCOTUS if the feds continue to push this.

    It's hard to find a lot of good news regarding all of this, but perhaps this is a silver lining!

  4. Barb
    Barb

    In 1965 (56 YEARS AGO) the TMH board chair and the CEO mistreated a black doctor. Therefore, the current TMH administrators and Board of Directors are not doing the right thing because their vaccination policy recognizes natural immunity??? I think somebody needs to let go of their deep-seated resentments.

    BTW, if you knew what some of these feds were paid, you may consider them overpaid as well and they may even belong to a country club.

  5. Hope
    Hope

    Breaking news...
    The pick for the new CSC director is the candidate with the extensive Gillum campaign operative experience... this was the mayor's wife's pick.

    The most qualified candidate withdrew and we end up with another Insider; that is the tally way so the corruption can continue.

    Carry on Insiders... Tallahassee is the laughing stock due to this corruption Junction. Vote out Dailey and do a nationwide search for the CSC director, a City Manager, and County Administrator.

    Tallahassee citizens deserve more than the current swamp misusing our tax dollars for their re-election campaigns.

    This pick is nothing more than a pick for Mayor Dailey to use for his re-election campaign at taxpayers expense.

    The committee should have put this out again in a nationwide search. Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Dailey as you bring misusing taxpayer resources to a new level.

  6. Mike L
    Mike L

    I really wish I could un-vaccinate myself...we need to dig a moat between Georgia and Alabama and tell the feds we quit.

  7. Edward Lyle
    Edward Lyle

    I said it way back when the China Bio-Weapon was first released on the world... This will not end until the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex has made billions and billions and billions off pumping doses of sugar water and fertilizer runoff into the minds of the malleable.

  8. A Skeptic
    A Skeptic

    This is so wrong. The medical community has faced the disease for nearly 2 years now, protecting and treating those seriously ill with COVID despite the potential risks to themselves.

    Now that there's some semblance of control, they're being told "You WILL volunteer to be a subject in the vaccine's Phase-III clinical trials or you will be fired".

    That's gratitude for ya.....

  9. POC
    POC

    So, what’s your point Holifield? Sounds like you are still stuck in the 1960s and addicted to race hustling and poverty pimping? A lot has changed for the better since then, but you don’t appear to embrace that from your comments. It also sounds like you are a slave to Evidence Based Medicine (look it up cultists), which has systematically allowed this medical fascism to take place. Do you love Big Medicine, Big Government and Big Pharma so much you’re willing to allow your patients and others to take an experimental Big Pharma jab that does kill and has caused permanent heart damage to those who believed the lies? Or do you not believe the CDC’s own VAERS reporting system? Do you think these fascistic mandates on medical staff is a good thing? Where do you stand? I think I know given the tone of your response.

  10. William_Wallace
    William_Wallace

    I do not want hear stories of how TMH and CRMC are short staffed in the next few months. They are choosing to comply they must own the consequences.

  11. TONY
    TONY

    Biden and everyone below him MUST be stopped before we become a 3rd. World Country.

  12. Edward Lyle
    Edward Lyle

    So.. it’s come to “do as we say, or your most vulnerable will pay”. The only way the Communist DemoKKKrat Party can get any of their harmful agenda implemented is by lying, cheating, stealing, rigging, threatening, and extorting.

    It’s what they do; it’s all they know; it’s who they are

    When will true Patriots in DC step up and impeach these treasonous lunatics?

  13. Edward Holifield, MD
    Edward Holifield, MD

    Why must TMH with its overpaid administrators and country club board of directors always be dragged kicking and screaming before they will do the right thing?

    The last time the feds threatened to cut Medicaid and Medicare funding to TMH was in 1965 when then TMH board chair Mallory Horne and CEO M.T. Mustian refused to let blacks into the hospital.

    TMH lost that battle too. This was after they had refused to allow Dr. R. L. Anderson join the TMH medical staff.

    Dr. Anderson had both an M.D. from Howard University and a Ph.D. in biological science from the University of Pittsburgh. He was probably more qualified than any of the white doctors on the TMH staff.

  14. Snidely Whiplash
    Snidely Whiplash

    Thats probley why hospitals here and around the globe over reported covid deaths also. Do it or lose money.

  15. Commonsense
    Commonsense

    No need to panic just yet. Let's let the courts sort-out all these Obama directives as announced by puppet Biden (aka Brandon, Sleepy Joe, etc.). Hopefully all this nonsense will be shut-down in short order.

  16. Hope
    Hope

    "as a healthcare facility, we have an obligation to provide access to care for elderly patients who receive Medicare and other vulnerable populations who receive Medicaid. In order to access to care for elderly patients who receive Medicare and other vulnerable populations who receive Medicaid. In order to provide care to these most vulnerable populations who receive care through these federal programs, TMH must comply with this regulation.”

    Not a very smart response. The response should have said they will not comply with over-reach and will be suing the Brandon Administration in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public at large.

💬

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