Last week, when state officials announced new guidance for testing all residents and staff at Tennessee's long-term care facilities, they said 60% of the state's 700 facilities had completed or scheduled COVID-19 checks.
The announcement came days ahead of an ambitious goal set by Gov. Bill Lee to test all workers and residents by the end of May.
But a closer look at the state's numbers indicate a significant amount of work is still ahead.
According to data provided to The Tennessean on Friday, only 237 of the state's facilities had completed testing. Another 200 had scheduled testing in the future.
The figures come more than a week after Department of Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey asked lawmakers on a phone call to help encourage facilities to undergo testing. At the time, Piercey said about 200 facilities had completed or scheduled COVID-19 testing.
The increased testing effort comes as nearly 38% of the state's overall COVID-19 deaths have occurred at long-term care facilities, as of the latest data available.
In an effort to get more facilities to complete and schedule testing, the state is now making it a requirement, something officials initially shied away from.
On May 1, the Lee administration sent a letter to nursing home administrators, stressing the need for widespread testing. The administration left it up to each facility to coordinate testing but said the health officials and the Tennessee National Guard can help. Despite the encouragement, the state struggled to meet its end-of-May goal.
"Protecting long-term care residents from COVID-19 is a top priority, and so the Department of Health pursued an emergency rule through the Health Care Facilities Board to codify the need for residents and staff to be tested, consistent with guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid," said Dean Flener, a spokesman for the state's Unified Command Group.
Under the new requirements, all staff and residents at long term care facilities must be tested by June 30.
Failure to meet the deadline could result in a facility having it's license revoked or suspended and civil penalties imposed.
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Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.
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Tennessee still has work left to get all long-term care facilities tested for COVID-19, state data shows - Tennessean
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