March 27, 2025 Washington, DC — Responding to today’s announcement of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’ reorganization and reductions in staff, Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit providers of aging services, said:

“The Department of Health and Human Services, through its agencies and offices, operate many of the programs and provide critical services and guidance that our nonprofit and mission-driven members–including providers of care in nursing homes, in home health care settings, hospice, adult day and Programs of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE)—rely on to serve older adults and their families.

We are closely monitoring the execution of today’s announcement. We urge HHS to ensure that older adults and the providers who serve them will not be an afterthought in this reorganization.

Cutting the staff responsible for carrying out agency and department activities raises obvious questions: how will the work that our members rely on get done? How will their ability to serve older adults, and ensure quality care, be impacted? And will today’s announcements limit older adults’ and families’ ability to access care and services?

Areas of concern include:

• Consolidating HHS field offices from 10 to 5 may, for instance, impact the ability of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to carry out survey, certification and enforcement activities in a timely manner. CMS locations, working out of HHS field offices, oversee the nursing home survey process, consult with states on providers’ compliance with requirements and more. CMS locations are also responsible for waiving certain requirements and oversight of disputed citations.
• Decreasing overall staff by almost 25% is a massive downsizing that should be undertaken with the utmost care and sensitivity to impact–particularly on the millions of older adults who rely on HHS programs and services. We are concerned that carrying out staff reductions at a dramatic scale such as this on a tight timeline does not allow for a thorough consideration of short- and long-term impacts to our country’s older adults and those who care for them.
• Redistributing the programs currently overseen by the Administration for Community Living, including programs authorized by the Older Americans Act, must be done in a way that supports and augments their value, rather than simply moving them solely for the sake of reducing the HHS office or employee count. These important programs that deliver vital services, including home care, food and transportation to millions of older adults in need nationwide, must be supported and not pushed into obscurity.”