The deadline has passed for health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid to be fully vaccinated

The deadline has passed for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate, which affects 10.4 million health care workers at 76,000 medical facilities in the United States.

That means health care providers at facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid must ensure their employees are fully vaccinated or have been granted approved medical or religious exemptions. The Feb. 28 deadline applied to providers in the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories and 25 states, including California, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.

Meanwhile, health care facilities in states throughout the South and Midwest have until March 15 to ensure their employees are fully vaccinated or exempt. Health care facilities in Texas have until March 21.

In January, the Supreme Court upheld President Joe Biden’s CMS vaccine mandate by a 5-4 vote. Only justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted their dissent. “The challenges posed by a global pandemic do not allow a federal agency to exercise power that Congress has not conferred upon it. At the same time, such unprecedented circumstances provide no grounds for limiting the exercise of authorities the agency has long been recognized to have,” the justices wrote in an unsigned opinion, saying the “latter principle governs” in the health care cases.

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