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HETL Available to Members for Surveillance Testing

As we all know, CMS published an update to QSO-20-38-NH, the Long-Term Care (LTC) Facility Testing Requirements for Staff and Residents. Within this update, facilities are required to test residents and staff, including individuals providing services under arrangement and volunteers, for COVID-19 based on community transmission rates set by federal CDC. In this most recent update CMS replaced the term “vaccinated” with “Up-to-date with all recommended COVID-19 vaccine doses” and deleted the term “unvaccinated”.  At this time, staff who are up-to date do not have to be routinely tested.

MHCA has been working with the Maine CDC to assess availability of HETL for processing routine testing samples of non 'up-to-date' staff persons as well as the compliance when lab turnaround time extends beyond 48hrs or POC testing methods are in short supply as indicated in the memo.

HETL has stated that they DO HAVE CAPACITY to assist homes with this testing requirement.

If you are interested in utilizing the state lab for testing of non ‘up-to-date' staff persons please reach out to Danielle Watford at MHCA or Lori Webber of the Maine CDC HETL directly to arrange for processing dates/sample size.

Staff Contact: dwatford@mehca.org