Evolving Approaches to Vaccine Mandates

There has been a great deal of recent discussion around the idea of employer mandated COVID-19 vaccinations. Now that the Pfizer vaccine has received full FDA approval, the conversation is gaining more traction by the day.

One company has taken a more creative approach in addressing COVID-19 risks in the workplace. This week, Delta Airlines announced to its employees that effective November 1, 2021, unvaccinated employees will be required to pay an additional $200 per month to remain on the company’s health benefits plan. This additional premium will be collected in an effort to offset the risks of higher plan costs incurred from unvaccinated team members.

As a self-insured company, Delta disclosed that no employee who had been hospitalized in “recent weeks” due to COVID-19 had been fully vaccinated. These hospital stays averaged between forty and fifty thousand dollars per case in costs to the airline.

This inventive approach provides significant financial incentive for employees to get vaccinated without expressly requiring the vaccination as a condition of employment.

It is important to note that there is still much legal uncertainty around this method. However, many large companies are now considering implementing similar measures. It may be worth considering a similar policy should your organization be self-insured and absorbing exorbitant COVID-19 costs from unvaccinated employees.

For companies considering the implementation of more straightforward mandatory vaccination policies, many questions remain around handling the post-employment process for employees who voluntarily quit.  Vaccine-related separations are a murky area for both employers and employees, and the process for state unemployment agencies to address these claims is still in its infancy. Each state will process these separations independently, and it will be important for employers to explicitly notate when an employee’s separation was due to their refusal to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

It is too early to know definitively how each state will rule on vaccine separations, but The Encompass Group will stay close to the issue and send out relevant updates as they become apparent and available.

Should you have any questions or wish to discuss your company’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, please reach out to your Client Experience Manager.