The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employers of 100 or more workers unconstitutional, but healthcare agencies subject to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services funding are still required to have employees vaccinated.

The court blocked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate earlier this month by a 6-3 vote, but in a 5-4 opinion they allowed the CMS vaccine mandate to go into effect as they stated it is necessary to protect patient health and safety as COVID-19 is a highly contagious, dangerous, and especially for Medicare and Medicaid patients, deadly disease. During a special Washington County Board of Health meeting held Thursday, Clinical Nurse Manager Karri Fisher and Public Health Director Emily Tokheim informed the board that all staff must be fully vaccinated by March 15th. Unlike the mandate for large employers, there is no weekly COVID testing option. Workers must either be vaccinated or present a religious or medical exemption. If Medicare or Medicaid-certified facilities like public health, nursing homes, or hospice care are noncompliant with this mandate they risk losing this federal funding.