November 12, 2026 Washington, DC — Statement from Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO, LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit and mission-driven providers of aging services, including hospice and home health, on the decision by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) to extend the nationwide hospice and home health enrollment moratoria:

“Our initial support for the moratoria was based on their limited, six-month duration and the opportunity they would provide CMS to develop and implement more targeted, long-term program integrity solutions. While we share the administration’s commitment to rooting out fraud and protecting the Medicare program, and some steps by the agency point in the right direction, most of their focus has been on Medicare-wide enrollment changes, not targeted hospice and home health efforts. Meanwhile, extending these moratoria further delays legitimate providers’ ability to establish needed services and leaves communities waiting for care.

There are changes to the moratoria that address some of these concerns and represent a step in the right direction. We welcome CMS’ decision to allow new hospice locations and home health branches, which will help expand access to care in underserved communities and give providers greater flexibility to respond to local needs. At the same time, important challenges remain, and this adjustment does not fully address the broader impact of the continued moratoria.

Across the country, mission-driven providers, including LeadingAge members, have invested significant time, resources, and financial commitments to establish new home health and hospice programs in response to demonstrated community needs. These organizations continue to absorb substantial start-up costs and overhead while their plans remain on hold, with no clear path forward. As we shared with CMS, these investments were not made for growth’s sake, but in response to a genuine need for care in their communities.

A continued, nationwide moratorium risks penalizing legitimate providers and restricting access to essential services without effectively addressing the underlying sources of fraud. Program integrity and access to care should not be competing priorities.

We will continue to urge CMS to pursue targeted, data-driven program integrity strategies that focus on bad actors while preserving opportunities for responsible providers to meet the growing needs of older adults and their communities.”