US freezes Medicare enrollments for new home healthcare and hospice providers

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By Jody Godoy and Courtney RozenThe Trump administration will block new home healthcare and hospice providers from enrolling in Medicare for at least the next six months, according to a government statement posted on Wednesday, citing concerns about widespread fraud.The moratorium will temporarily bar new providers in those categories from signing up for reimbursement from Medicare, a U.S. government health insurance program for Americans aged 65 and older and those with disabilities. It will not impact providers already registered with Medicare, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees the program.It is the latest move by Vice President JD Vance's anti-fraud task force that aims to crack down on healthcare scams.The U.S. government has for years tried to tackle fraudulent payments from Medicare to hospice and home healthcare providers.Scammers can bill Medicare for services that the patient doesn't need or want, allowing them to rake in millions of dollars from the U.S. government. The national fraud prevention group Senior Medicare Patrol has repeatedly issued alerts on the issue.It is unusual to pause registrations nationwide. CMS has paused enrollments in the past in specific counties when staff suspected fraud tied to those locations, including in 2013, when it barred new providers based in Florida's Miami-Dade County and several counties in Illinois.CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz did not provide specific evidence to reporters on Wednesday to explain why the Trump administration believes it is necessary to bar new enrollments across the U.S., as opposed to in specific areas.Fraudsters that have been barred from collecting Medicare payments often try to get around the ban by starting a new company and registering for payments, said Stephen Lee, a former federal prosecutor who worked in Illinois at the time of the 2013 enrollment pause.But pausing new enrollments doesn't help alleviate theft by companies that are already enrolled in Medicare, he said. "It would be a mistake to think that this tool alone will work."Reuters was first to report on the pause. The moratorium will give CMS time to account for hospice and home health expenditures under the Medicare program and create additional guidance, an administration official said.The Trump administration has been criticized for mixing the president's political preferences w...

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