Court Ruling Puts CMS Vaccine Mandate on Temporary Hold across the Country

A federal district court in Louisiana late yesterday issued a preliminary injunction placing a temporary hold on enforcement of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services vaccine mandate for health care facilities in all states, except the 10 already covered by the Missouri district court’s preliminary injunction issued on Nov. 29. The federal government is expected to quickly appeal the district court’s order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and ask the appeals court to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction pending appeal.

In addition, the federal government yesterday appealed the Missouri district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and asked the court of appeals to stay the Missouri district court’s preliminary injunction pending appeal.

CMS’ interim final rule issued last month requires workers in most health care settings that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4. See the recent AHA Special Bulletin for more details on the rule.

To help hospitals and health system leaders stay up-to-date on all of the legal developments related to CMS’ vaccine mandate, the AHA has developed a blog that will be authored by Sean Marotta, a partner at Hogan Lovells and outside counsel for the AHA. Visit the blog page for an initial post. The blog will be updated regularly as new developments occur.

Further Questions
If you have questions, please contact AHA at 800-424-4301.