News: CMS announces six-month moratorium on home health, hospice provider enrollment
CMS announced a six-month nationwide moratorium to prevent enrollment of new home health agencies and hospice providers this month. This moratorium will be effective immediately.
The agency is meant to use this time to intensify anti-fraud efforts within the sector. This includes “targeted investigations, deploy advanced data analytics, and accelerate the removal of hospice and HHA providers from the Medicare program that are suspected of committing fraud,” according to the agency’s press release.
The moratorium applies to all applications for initial Medicare enrollment and certain changes in majority ownership. The moratoria should not impact current enrollments, as existing providers can continue to deliver services to Medicare beneficiaries.
Recent CMS action is in coordination with Vice President JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force. “The moratoria are part of CMS’ ongoing efforts to stop fraud before it starts, using data-driven prevention and real-time enforcement as part of a coordinated federal approach,” according to CMS.
Ashley Thompson, American Hospital Association (AHA) senior vice president of public policy analysis and development, said, “The AHA strongly supports CMS’ efforts to protect the integrity of the Medicare program and combat fraud. Yet, as we have stated previously, we are concerned about subjecting entire categories of providers or claims to restrictions due to the actions of a limited number of bad actors.”
Editor’s note: To read the original press release, click here. To read additional coverage by the AHA, click here.