The Bodeans sing about what they think is people’s most basic desire in their biggest hit, “Closer to Free.” It’s pretty simple:
Everybody wants to live how they wanna live and
Everybody wants to love how they wanna love and
Everybody wants to be closer to free.
I think as a long-term care professional, it gets even simpler: Everybody just wants to be heard.
As in why won’t the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Biden administration listen to us?
CMS and its leaders continue to push the agency’s healthcare worker vaccine mandate. Haven’t numerous U.S. providers been warning that forcing facilities to have only vaccinated workers will potentially cause many to leave the job, and possibly the profession?
And haven’t some operators said they could have to close facilities or services as a result?
Aren’t they listening?
I can confidently report we will get an important message across to federal regulators.
Here’s how it will work: With vaccination mandate final deadlines hitting Feb. 28 and March 15, you can send me details of the numbers of workers you actually lost due to employees saying, “Healthcare facility or not, no jab for me, I’m outta here for good.”
Write to me about the number, or percentage, of staff you lose. Please address only those who leave because of the mandate deadlines hitting. You don’t want to get numbers muddled with the 400,000-plus who have already fled, before the feds’ mandate was in play.
Just a couple of ground rules: Some have a problem with you warning of potential losses, so no guessing or predicting. And you have to leave your name, title and facility — in confidence, if you wish.
The idea isn’t to get anyone in trouble — on the contrary. But this is going to be conducted with more integrity than a social media free-for-all, where accountability is about as present as Michael Jordan’s hairline.
Some, including the CMS elite, academic researchers and even some of your own fellow operator executives, are skeptical. They say dramatic staff losses haven’t happened under vaccination mandates, and they won’t with this one.
Now’s the time for you to set them straight.
Let me hear from you: [email protected]. I will gather responses — including whether few take up this offer — and make results known.
