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This letter is in regards to the new visitation and vaccination mandate.

We wanted to update all of you on the new guidelines from CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services). There will be no restrictions on visitation in long-term care. Effective immediately, if there were to be a COVID-19 positive case in our building at any given time, it will no longer be considered an outbreak and visitation will not be impacted.

Visitors will still need to screen in before entering The Households of Bethany by having their temperature taken and acknowledging they are not currently experiencing any symptoms. Masks are still required when visitors are in the building and if the Story County positivity rate is 8% or above then eye protection are required as well. Currently as of 11/19/21, Story County has a positivity rate of 13.27%.

We will continue to provide the PPE for visitors. Additionally, visits may still occur in a resident’s room and for those in a shared room, visitors must maintain social distance from their loved one’s neighbor and wear a mask at all times. There is not a limit to how many people can visit, length of time, or frequency.

As far as our Sunday church service we will plan on opening it back up to families and community in January! We will send out more information on this in December. Pastor Dave has both Thanksgiving and Christmas services planned for the residents and as always continues his one-on-one visits, hymn sing, devotionals and both men and women groups.

The CMS provided an update regarding the COVID-19 vaccination mandate that requires our continuum of care to be in compliance by December 5th. The COVID-19 vaccination mandate states the following:

The employee must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by January 4th, 2022. One dose must be complete by December 5th, and if there is a second dose in the series, it is to be done by January 4th. We are working with our employees to ensure they have all the information. An employee can submit a medical or religious exemption if that is the reason why they haven’t received the vaccine.

We want to THANK YOU for your patience with us during the pandemic. We are so happy to see the new visitation guidelines and look forward to seeing more families in the building. The grace you have extended us has been a blessing.

We ask that you continue to pray for our staff. As you know there is a nationwide shortage of workers and at Bethany Life, we are facing those same challenges. Because of the hard work and extra hours put in by our employees, right now we are able to say we do not have any agency staffing in our building and we have new employees on-boarding each day.

When I think of what Bethany Life and the world has been through this Bible verse comes to mind, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13. We feel God’s strength here at Bethany Life and we continue to keep Him in focus has we make challenging decisions each day.

Blessings,
Amanda Lankford, Administrator