CMS announces moratorium on hospice, home health agency enrollments

WASHINGTON – The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will implement a six-month, nationwide data-driven moratorium on new Medicare enrollment for hospices and home health agencies (HHAs).

CMS says the moratorium, which will temporarily halt the influx of new providers into these high-risk categories, continues the Trump Administration’s crackdown on fraud, waste and abuse in the Medicare program.

“We’ve seen systemic and deeply troubling fraud in the hospice and home health space, with bad actors exploiting some of our most vulnerable Medicare patients and stealing money from the American taxpayer,” said CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. “Today we’re shutting the door on fraud – preventing new bad actors from entering Medicare while we aggressively identify, investigate, and remove those already exploiting them.”

In February, CMS announced a six-month moratorium on DMEPOS suppliers.

During the moratorium, CMS says it will intensify 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.

Recent CMS action, undertaken in coordination with Vice President JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, has included the suspension of payments to 773 hospices and 23 HHAs suspected of fraud in Los Angeles alone, representing $70 million in suspended funds thus far.

Additional CMS work has included:

• Revoking or deactivating hundreds of hospices and HHAs engaged in improper or fraudulent activity;
• Conducting nationwide hospice site visits to verify operations and identify suspicious activity;
• Heightened oversight of newly enrolled Medicare hospice providers in states with elevated fraud risk, including Arizona, California, Georgia, Ohio, Nevada and Texas;
• Launching a new, publicly available hospice scoring system to increase transparency and identify providers with troubling patterns of utilization, quality, or compliance;
• Implementing enhanced enrollment screening measures for high-risk HHAs, including site verification of reported practice locations and fingerprinting-based background checks; and
• Expanding a demonstration project that allows pre- and post-claim review of HHA claims in Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas to stop improper payments before they occur.

Additional information on the moratorium can be found via the Federal Register at: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2026-09717 (Home Health) and https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2026-09718 (Hospice).