healthcare worker filling out a Covid vaccine card

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Eleven assisted living service agencies were among the more than 100 Connecticut long-term care providers fined a total of $19 million for failing to comply with an executive order mandating staff COVID-19 vaccinations.

The assisted living providers were penalized $3.5 million for not reporting their compliance with the order. Others cited for non-reporting were 18 residential care homes, fined a total of $405,000; 68 managed residential communities, fined a total of $15.3 million; and four nursing homes fined, a total of $900,000. 

The Connecticut Department of Public Health began issuing civil penalties in late October to long-term care providers that did not submit reports attesting to their compliance with the order by the Sept. 28 deadline.

Fifty-nine of the state’s 643 long-term care facilities submitted documentation after the deadline, whereas 101 (16%) failed to report altogether as of Nov. 12. Last month, the public health department issued a total of $221,000 in civil penalties to 26 of the 59 facilities in the late reporter category. The department is reviewing the 101 providers in the non-reporter category, which are subject to ongoing penalties ranging from $500 per day to $5,000 per day.

At the time, senior living associations told McKnight’s Senior Living that most of the underreporting was the result of confusion and / or miscommunication. 

DPH Commissioner Manish Juthani, M.D., called the providers’ failure to comply with the reporting requirement “unacceptable.”

“With the holidays and colder weather approaching, we expect cases of COVID-19 to rise in the community, which increases the chances that COVID-19 will rise in long-term care settings,” Juthani said in a statement. “These vaccine mandates are in place to protect not only the patients and residents in long-term care, but to ensure the health and safety of staff and their families and co-workers.”