CAMI Applauds CMS Nationwide Moratorium on Hospice and Home Health Enrollment as Critical First Step Against Fraud

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Washington, DC The Center for Accountability, Modernization and Innovation (CAMI) applauds Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’s (CMS) recent announcement of a six-month nationwide moratorium on new Medicare enrollments for hospice providers and home health agencies.

This pause directly addresses the surge of new providers that has fueled widespread fraud and waste in programs designed to support some of the most vulnerable Americans during their final stage of life. By halting new enrollments and restricting ownership changes that bad actors have long exploited, CMS is taking concrete steps to protect beneficiaries and safeguard taxpayer dollars.

But Medicare is only part of the picture - fraud schemes and the waste which often accompanies them doesn’t stop there. Rather, they cross over, adapt, and thrive wherever oversight is weakest. States have seen the same patterns: rapid enrollment growth in long-term care and community-based services, questionable billing spikes, and providers who cycle through ownership changes to evade scrutiny. The moratorium is a strong opening move on the Medicare side, but real progress will require carrying that same urgency into Medicaid.

CMS and the states must now use this window to identify existing bad actors, permanently remove fraudulent providers from both Medicare and Medicaid networks, and root out other sources of abuse. Providers who simply rebrand or relocate cannot be allowed to continue draining resources meant for legitimate care. Modern, integrated technology, real-time eligibility verification, and advanced analytics that flag anomalous patterns across Medicare, Medicaid, and state agencies offer a far more effective defense against this drag on taxpayers and the systems they fund. These tools not only catch fraud and reduce waste after the fact; they help prevent it by making it dramatically harder for bad actors to operate in the first place.

The administration has created real enforcement momentum with this moratorium, but it will now be up to the states to transition from this six month pause to permanent cleanup. One that will require the modern tools to tackle the sophisticated waste and fraud which continues to run rampant throughout Medicaid programs. CAMI stands prepared to engage with policymakers, state administrators, and federal leaders to ensure the enforcement infrastructure behind this announcement is built to last well past its expiration date.