Attn: Nursing Home Providers
Wisconsin Aligns with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Requirements for Routine Testing of Unvaccinated Staff
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is happy to announce that Wisconsin will align to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requirements for routine testing of unvaccinated staff.
CMS indicates routine testing of unvaccinated staff should be based on the extent of the virus in the community. Fully vaccinated staff do not have to be routinely tested. Facilities should use their county positivity rate in the prior week as the trigger for determining the frequency of routine testing of unvaccinated staff. Reports of COVID-19 county-level positivity rates are available on the following website (see section titled, “COVID19 Testing”) at: https://data.cms.gov/stories/s/COVID-19-Nursing-Home-Data/bkwz-xpvg. For additional information, please see CMS memo 20-38-NH revised April 27, 2021.
Testing is required for anyone with COVID-19 symptoms, higher-risk exposures as well as facility-wide outbreak testing regardless of vaccination status.
Minimum Routine Screening Testing for Unvaccinated Staff at All Long-Term Care Facilities Based On County Positivity Rates.
- Less than 5% (low/green), test monthly
- 5-10% (medium/yellow), test weekly
- Greater than 10% (high/red), test twice weekly
“Fully vaccinated” means a person who is more than two weeks following receipt of the second dose in a 2-dose series, or more than two weeks following receipt of one dose of a single-dose vaccine.
Ordering of testing supplies based on your county positivity rate can be placed through the ordering website.
If you have questions regarding this information, please contact the COVID Testing Task Force at WICovidTest@wi.gov.
The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will continue to provide allocations of BinaxNOW to qualified nursing homes and long-term care facilities through the end of August into September depending on how long the supply lasts. Wisconsin will also continue to support testing beyond June.
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