Local area business owners preparing to lose workers once the federal mandate is in effect

Monroe County, New York – Once the federal mandate is in effect, 80 million workers will be given the choice to get the COVID vaccine or get tested weekly.

Many of them in healthcare facilities won’t have a testing option.

A Greece woman owns two at-home elderly care businesses.

Mary-Joy Lipari at-home healthcare business, Professional Assistance for Seniors, already falls under the state vaccine mandate for all healthcare workers.

However, her companionship business for the elderly community, Home Instead Senior Care, will fall under the federal vaccine-or-test mandate.

According to Lipardi, she could lose a total of 80 employees in both businesses if they don’t change their minds about the COVID vaccine.

“I personally stand to lose anywhere from 40% to 50% of my business and my employees. So that’s going to be a pretty tough hit,” she says.

CHS Mobile Integrated Healthcare also falls under the federal mandate as it is federally funded through Medicaid and Medicare.

According to Reg Allen, the chief of CHS, only a small percentage of his ambulance staff is unvaccinated. However, the federal mandate could still have a significant impact.

“We’re not optimal staffing. So, it just takes one person to call in sick, and all of a sudden we’re scrambling. So that’s really the issue,” says Allen.

Both businesses say the mandates will not only impact them but the community they serve.

“We have to work with our clientele as well to ask them to understand that this may cause a change in either the timing of their services, the length of their services, or the frequency of their services,” says Lipari.

“We’re the first line of defense, and so it leaves fewer ambulances available in the entire county. It’s not just us. I mean every ambulance service, I would assume, has people that aren’t vaccinated,” says Allen.

According to Lipari, now her focus is to educate her workers and increase vaccination rates before time runs out.

“We’ll try and get the medical staff completed first and then we’ll work on our non-medical staff to help them understand, and hopefully to get vaccinated,” she says. “There’s a sense of urgency.”

Both companies are still waiting for additional guidance from the federal government and hope more answers will be revealed this week.