CMS Official Defends Hospice, Home Health Enrollment Moratoria
CMS Deputy Administrator and COO Kimberly Brandt told a hospice industry conference that the agency's six-month Medicare enrollment moratoria on hospice and home health providers have successfully curbed fraud, denying 50 hospice and 250 home health applications while cutting billing sharply in high-fraud states including California, Texas, Nevada, Ohio, Georgia and Arizona. The moratoria, which bar new enrollment applications and certain ownership changes, are set to expire November 13, and CMS must decide whether to let them lapse or extend them in another six-month increment, as the law only permits extensions in that interval. Brandt acknowledged the crackdown has also swept up legitimate providers, with CMS suspending payments for 899 hospice and home health providers, 812 of them in California, totaling $1.4 billion in suspended payments.