Trump administration pauses Medicare enrollments for hospice providers amid fraud investigations
Washington — The Trump administration is enacting a six-month moratorium on new Medicare enrollments by hospice and home health agencies to target fraud, effectively putting a hold on new hospice and home health agencies.
"There will be no new hospices or home health care open in this country," said Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz in a press conference on Wednesday alongside Vice President JD Vance. "If you have the program now, you can keep it. You can go to ones that already exist. We're not taking away any services. But there will be no new ones, licenses granted, until we can figure out a better way of working across government."
The moratorium will entail targeted investigations, advanced analysis of data, and a swifter removal of providers that are suspected of committing fraud, CMS said.
Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General reported in 2023 that suspected hospice fraud amounts totaled an estimated $198.1 million.
Vance also announced Wednesday that the Trump administration will be deferring $1.3 billion in reimbursement payments for California's Medicaid anti-fraud unit, and warned all 50 states to crack down on Medicaid fraud or risk losing funding for their anti-fraud units. California, he said has "not taken fraud very seriously." Vance clarified that Medicaid recipients in California will continue to receive funding.
The latest developments follow a CBS News investigation, based on state and federal data, that raised concerns about potentially fraudulent hospice companies and charges, notably in California, where an outsized number of companies offer hospice services.
The investigation found that over 700 of the roughly 1,800 hospices in LA County trigger multiple red flags for fraud as defined by the state.
In response to the CBS News reports, Oz announced in March an initiative to decertify any hospice providers that are found to be defrauding taxpayers by stealing the identities of people not in hospice or by overbilling for those who are dying.
"If they do not aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud, we are going to turn off the money that goes to these anti-fraud units," Vance said in a press conference in Washington Wednesday.
Vance insisted this isn't a red state or a blue state issue, and that there are also Medicaid fraud issues in Ohio, a red state. But, Vance said, it's generally blue states that aren't aggressively pursuing Medicaid fraud. President Trump picked Vance to head up the White House's anti-fraud task force.
Medicaid generally provides health care for low-income Americans, while Medicare is for seniors, although there are many exceptions.
On Thursday, Vance heads to Bangor, Maine, for an address on the administration's efforts to combat fraud.
In a social media post on Wednesday announcing the freeze on enrollments, the White House's anti-fraud task force noted that states had to "fight fraud too."
"States aren't entitled to taxpayer money for fraudulent Medicaid services," the task force said. "Americans shouldn't have to pay fraudsters and states to waste your hard-earned money. This administration and the Fraud Task Force are fighting for accountability."
