CMS Announces Six-Month Medicare Enrollment Moratorium for New Hospice and Home Health Agencies
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced a six-month, nationwide moratorium on new Medicare enrollment for hospice and home health agencies. The action is part of CMS’s broader effort to address fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare and strengthen program integrity across high-risk provider categories.
The moratorium applies to initial Medicare enrollment applications and certain changes in majority ownership for hospices and home health agencies. CMS stated that current Medicare-enrolled providers are not directly impacted by the moratorium and may continue delivering services to Medicare beneficiaries.
As always, Simple continues to monitor regulatory updates like these to help hospice and home health providers stay informed and prepared.
Why CMS Is Taking This Action
CMS stated that the moratorium is intended to temporarily pause new hospice and home health Medicare enrollments while the agency increases oversight and enforcement activity.
This action reflects a broader shift toward more proactive, data-driven program integrity efforts. Rather than focusing only on identifying improper activity after it occurs, CMS is placing greater emphasis on preventing questionable providers from entering Medicare in the first place, increasing enrollment scrutiny and using data analytics to identify suspicious patterns.
CMS also indicated that a nationwide approach is intended to prevent bad actors from moving across state lines to avoid detection.
What the Moratorium Applies To
The moratorium applies to:
- New Medicare enrollment applications for hospice providers
- New Medicare enrollment applications for home health agencies
- Certain changes in majority ownership
CMS noted that ownership changes are included because they can sometimes be used to obscure control by individuals or entities attempting to avoid oversight.
What the Moratorium Does Not Change
CMS stated that the moratorium does not impact current Medicare enrollments.
Existing hospice and home health providers may continue to deliver care to Medicare beneficiaries during the six-month period. The moratorium is focused on new enrollments and certain ownership changes, not on stopping currently enrolled providers from operating.
What This Signals for the Industry
While the moratorium does not directly change day-to-day operations for existing providers, it signals a continued increase in CMS scrutiny across hospice and home health.
CMS has emphasized the use of targeted investigations, site visits, enrollment screening, data analytics and payment suspensions as part of its broader program integrity efforts. For compliant providers, this reinforces the importance of maintaining strong documentation, accurate submissions, clear ownership records and defensible care delivery practices.
Industry groups have also raised concerns that broad nationwide restrictions may create unintended access-to-care challenges, particularly in rural or underserved areas where provider capacity may already be limited.
What Providers Should Watch
Hospice and home health organizations should continue monitoring:
- Additional CMS guidance related to the moratorium
- Federal Register notices tied to hospice and home health enrollment
- Updates to enrollment screening or ownership change requirements
- Program integrity activity in high-risk markets
- Potential extensions or modifications to the six-month moratorium
Organizations planning expansion, new enrollments, acquisitions or ownership changes should pay close attention to how CMS applies the moratorium and whether additional clarification is issued.
What This Means for Providers
For currently enrolled hospice and home health providers, the moratorium does not directly change day-to-day operations. However, it reinforces CMS’s continued focus on program integrity, data-driven oversight, documentation accuracy and defensible care delivery.
Providers should continue reviewing internal compliance processes, submission workflows, documentation practices and reporting visibility to ensure they remain aligned with Medicare requirements as oversight activity increases.
Simple helps hospice and home health organizations stay organized around key reporting and compliance workflows, including data submission, access to CMS reporting and visibility into important operational and quality data.
Simple will continue tracking CMS updates related to hospice and home health oversight and sharing information to help providers understand what is changing and how it may impact operations, compliance and reporting workflows.