Sponsors (3)
Introduced March 17, 2026 by Linda T. Sánchez · Last progress March 17, 2026
The bill trades stronger oversight, ownership transparency, and higher targeted payments to improve hospice quality and program integrity against increased provider compliance costs, added payment complexity, potential access constraints from moratoria, and higher near‑term Medicare spending.
Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers: the bill strengthens program integrity and ownership transparency (public ownership data, reporting, data-driven moratoria and fraud-focused oversight), which should reduce abusive billing and inform enforcement or policy fixes.
Patients with serious illness and their families: increased clinical oversight (more frequent surveys, stronger accreditor oversight, clearer medical director requirements and availability, including telehealth provisions) aims to improve hospice quality and patient safety.
Medicare beneficiaries receiving in‑home hospice: specified routine home hospice services will receive substantially higher payments (temporary 400% adjustment for certain services Oct 1, 2027–Sep 30, 2032), improving access to more intensive in-home hospice care.
Medicare beneficiaries in underserved or growing-need areas: a nationwide five-year moratorium plus area moratoria could restrict new hospice entry and reduce access to hospice services in rural or rapidly changing markets.
Hospice operators, small providers, and potential investors: new rapid revalidation, extensive ownership reporting, change-of-control penalties (up to $1M) and other compliance requirements increase administrative costs and may discourage investment or prompt closures.
Taxpayers and the Medicare program: higher hospice reimbursement rates (including the temporary 400% payment) plus an explicit $30M transfer to CMS for implementation increase near-term Medicare outlays and could strain trust‑fund resources or crowd out other spending.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Imposes nationwide and area-specific moratoria on new Medicare hospice enrollments, requires revalidation and ownership transparency, applies prepayment review, and changes hospice payment rules.
Imposes a temporary nationwide 5-year moratorium on new Medicare hospice enrollments and creates automatic 3-year area-specific moratoria where data show statistically significant increases in hospice use or where fraud/quality concerns are found. Requires revalidation of all enrolled hospices, public posting of ownership and control data, targeted prepayment medical review of routine home hospice for certain providers, and a congressional report on hospice ownership and cost reporting. Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish guidance and issue implementing regulations, changes hospice payment rules to better align certain rates with costs (including higher, time-limited per-day payments for specified routine home care), defines a “visit” as in-person contact, and phases in annual payment adjustments for various hospice services beginning in later years.