Kansas Health Care Personnel Vaccine Mandates

Kansas Hospital Mandates

In 2021, several Kansas hospitals mandated all staff receive vaccinations against COVID-19. The table below lists hospitals and hospital systems in the state that issued COVID-19 vaccine mandates, as well as the date by which staff were to complete the vaccine regimen. Some hospitals, such as AdventHealth, paused their mandates following court injunctions against federal vaccine mandates.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued technical guidance on the topic of vaccine requirements. According to the EEOC, employers can mandate employees receive vaccines subject to reasonable accommodation provisions in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The State of Kansas has not issued any COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Hospital or System	Vaccine Deadline
Ascension Via Christi	11/11/21
Lawrence Memorial Hospital Health	11/21/21
Mercy Health System	09/30/21
Stormont Vail Health	10/31/21
University of Kansas Health System Kansas City Division	12/01/21
University of Kansas Health System St. Francis Campus (Topeka)	12/01/21
AdventHealth	01/04/22

Health-Related Federal Vaccination Requirements

In August 2021, the Biden Administration announced it would require all staff at Medicaid and Medicaid-participating nursing homes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 4, 2022. In September 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) extended that requirement to include staff at the following facilities, as a condition for participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs:

• Acute care facilities;
• Critical Access Hospitals;
• Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities;
• Ambulatory Surgical Centers;
• Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facilities;
• Federally Qualified Health Centers;
• Rural Health Clinics;
• Durable medical equipment suppliers;
• Home Health Agencies;
• Hospices; and
• Clinical labs.

According to CMS data on nursing facilities nationwide, as of October 21, 2021, an average of 64.7 percent of health care personnel in Kansas nursing care facilities had completed a COVID-19 vaccination regimen. Staff at two Kansas facilities were 100 percent vaccinated against COVID-19.

On November 29, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued a preliminary injunction against the federal vaccine mandate for employees at CMS-regulated facilities in the 10 states, including Kansas, that filed the lawsuit. As of December 2021, two other district courts have issued injunctions against the CMS mandate, bringing the total number of states affected by the CMS mandate injunctions to 25. As a result of the injunctions, CMS announced on its website it had “suspended activities related to the implementation and enforcement of this rule pending future developments in the litigation.” On January 7, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the CMS mandate injunctions.

Department of Labor Rules

In September 2021, the Biden Administration announced the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was planning to require all employers with 100 or more employees to vaccinate all staff. As of October 2021, the details of OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard had not been released.