News File Photo In this March 2020 photo, MidMichigan Medical Center-Alpena is seen with its sign reading, "We are all in this together."

ALPENA — Employees at MidMichigan Medical Center-Alpena may have to get vaccinated against the coronavirus within the next couple months or the hospital could lose all Medicare and Medicaid payments, Chuck Sherwin, hospital president, said Thursday.

Sherwin said that U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued new mandates that would stop all Medicare and Medicaid insurance payments to facilities without all employees vaccinated.

Sherwin said 65% to 75% of patients carry those forms of insurance.

He would not say whether employees who refuse to get vaccinated would lose their job.

CMS and President Joe Biden’s administration have issued rules mandating vaccination for health care workers. This week, a coalition of 10 states sued the administration to try to stop the mandate.

MidMichigan Health, the Midland-based group that owns the Alpena hospital, has more than 8,900 employees, volunteers, and providers, and 64% of employees are fully vaccinated, spokeswoman Millie Jezior said.

The federal mandate says every employee must be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4. To comply, employees would need their first dose by Dec.6, according to Diane Postler-Slattery, president and CEO of MidMichigan Health.

In a video released Thursday addressing her employees, Postler-Slattery explained that MidMichigan Health has always encouraged its employees to get vaccinated, but it was not mandated.

“All that changed as of last week,” when CMS came out with the mandate, she said.

If MidMichigan does not receive payments for their Medicare and Medicaid patients, “we cannot exist,” Postler-Slattery said.

She said that they wouldn’t need the staff that they currently have if they could no longer accept Medicare and Medicaid because the MidMichigan hospitals wouldn’t receive very many patients.

Postler-Slattery said contractors would also fall under the CMS mandates. She encouraged employees to talk with their leaders before making any decisions concerning their employment.

“This is a requirement that we can no longer not comply with,” Postler-Slattery said in the video.

She said she is aware that cases disputing the mandate are being filed in court, but, until they are decided, she is forced to act on the documents that are available today.

The new lawsuit contends that the CMS vaccine requirement is unprecedented and unreasonably broad, affecting even volunteers and staff who don’t typically work with patients.

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“The mandate is a blatant attempt to federalize public health issues involving vaccination that belong within the States’ police power,” said the suit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is running for U.S. Senate.

Workplace vaccine mandates have become more common recently and generally have resulted in significant compliance.

The mandate allows some exceptions, including for medical and religious reasons and for employees working 100% remotely, Postler-Slattery said in the video.

But employees need proper forms and a review to qualify for those exemptions. She said that there is no expiration date on the mandate and employees should “give each other some grace.”

About 60% of residents 16 and older in Alpna, Montmorency, and Alcona counties are fully vaccinated, according to state data. About 64% of residents in Presque Isle County are fully vaccinated.

Nearly 1,200 Northeast Michigan residents are currently actively infected or probably infected with COVID-19, according to local health department data, more than at any other time during the pandemic.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that nearly 1,200 Northeast Michiganders were actively infected with COVID-19 when this story published. That figure was incorrect in an earlier version of this story because of a problem in a spreadsheet formula The News uses to calculate active infections. That problem has been fixed.