Trump Admin Pauses Home Health Care Enrollment to Root Out Fraud

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is pausing new Medicare enrollment for hospices and home health agencies for six months to review alleged rampant fraud.

Vice President JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force is working with the agency to combat fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare. So far, the task force has withheld $1.4 billion in federal funding from home health and hospice providers across the country, Fox News reported.

“We’ve seen systemic and deeply troubling fraud in the hospice and home health space, with bad actors exploiting some of our most vulnerable Medicare patients and stealing money from the American taxpayer,” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said.

“Today we’re shutting the door on fraud—preventing new bad actors from entering Medicare while we aggressively identify, investigate, and remove those already exploiting them. This is about protecting patients, restoring integrity, and safeguarding taxpayer dollars,” Oz said.

The announcement comes after the Daily Wire reported on alleged widespread Medicare fraud in Ohio’s home health industry. Officials with Ohio Medicaid told the Columbus Dispatch the department had been investigating fraud concerns before the recent reports surfaced.

The moratorium will not affect current Medicare enrollments. Existing providers will continue to deliver services to Medicare beneficiaries.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will use the new enrollment moratorium to “intensify targeted investigations, deploy advanced data analytics, and accelerate the removal of hospice and HHA providers from the Medicare program that are suspected of committing fraud,” according to a news release.

The administration hopes to stop bad actors from evading detection by crossing state lines.

Earlier this year, the agency announced a similar moratorium to prevent fraudulent Medicare billing by certain durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies companies.

In February, Vance announced that the administration was withholding reimbursements for $259.5 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota pending an investigation into allegations of widespread welfare fraud there.

Vance is holding a news conference Wednesday afternoon to warn all 50 states they must fully comply with anti-fraud statutes or risk losing federal Medicaid funding, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“Under President Trump, we are unleashing the most aggressive federal anti-fraud efforts in American history,” Vance said. “We won’t rest until we root out every bit of fraud infecting our government and screwing over taxpayers.”