Sponsor
Beth Van Duyne
Representative · R-TX
Representative · R-TX
Tightens Medicare oversight of hospice and home‑health providers: more surveys, enhanced screening for high‑risk providers, beneficiary notices, accreditation checks, reporting, and directed trust‑fund transfers.
Official title: To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for additional oversight of hospice programs and home health agencies under the Medicare program, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 19, 2026 by Beth Van Duyne · Last progress May 19, 2026
The bill strengthens oversight, screening, survey and notification rules to reduce fraud and improve hospice/home‑health quality and beneficiary transparency, but does so by reallocating Medicare trust fund resources and imposing significant compliance, operational, and access risks—especially for small, rural, or resource‑constrained providers.
Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers: stronger, more consistent oversight (revalidation, annual surveys for new/at‑risk providers, enhanced screening, accreditation oversight and other integrity actions) should reduce fraud and improper payments and improve hospice/home‑health care quality.
CMS and program implementation: dedicated funding (a $100 million transfer to CMS and a $6 million/year transfer for beneficiary notices) supports timely implementation and sustained administration of the new oversight and notification requirements.
Legitimate providers and patients: targeted screening and enrollment checks in high‑risk areas (fingerprinting, proof of liability insurance, other enhanced checks) should remove bad actors and reduce unfair competition, benefiting compliant providers and improving patient protection.
Hospice and home‑health providers (especially small and rural programs) will face substantial new compliance costs and administrative burdens from expanded revalidation, more frequent surveys, enhanced enrollment checks, reporting and training requirements.
Patients may experience temporary service disruptions or delayed access to care when providers are surveyed, revalidated, or held up by enhanced screening/enrollment checks, potentially harming continuity of hospice/home‑health services.
Trust fund impact: the $100 million one‑time transfer and the recurring $6 million annual transfer reduce balances in the Medicare Hospital Insurance (Part A) Trust Fund, which could accelerate depletion compared with no transfer.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Strengthens Medicare oversight of hospice programs and home health agencies by requiring more frequent surveys, enhanced enrollment screening for high‑risk providers, beneficiary notice for hospice elections, new accreditation body standards, and annual HHS reports on program‑integrity actions. The bill also directs federal trust fund transfers (FY2026 and recurring small transfers) to fund CMS program management to implement these changes. The law targets fraud and aberrant provider behavior with geographic and provider‑level risk triggers, creates processes for limited data‑submission extensions, and gives HHS authority to reassess and remediate national accreditation bodies.