{"id":646323,"date":"2026-05-16T07:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/646323\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T07:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:50:11","slug":"moratorium-wont-impact-existing-home-health-hospice-services-in-maine-advocates-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/646323\/","title":{"rendered":"Moratorium won\u2019t impact existing home health, hospice services in Maine, advocates say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A six-month moratorium on new home health and hospice agencies that provide Medicare services won\u2019t have much of an impact in Maine, an advocacy group official said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Sara Ratcliffe, executive director of the Maine Alliance for Care at Home, which represents home health and hospice agencies, said the moratorium won\u2019t affect existing providers, and new agencies don\u2019t open often. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur biggest concern always is are patients going to continue to receive\u00a0care they need and deserve, and the answer to that is, \u2018Yes,&#8217;\u201d Ratcliffe said. \u201cIf (the moratorium) extends for years\u00a0then I could see where there could be a problem. But in this six-month time frame we will be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vice President JD Vance, who was in Bangor on Thursday, has been highlighting \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse\u201d cases in Medicare and Medicaid during recent appearances, arguing that it\u2019s rampant in the programs. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the moratorium on Wednesday, citing examples of fraudulent billing across the country. Maine\u2019s home health and hospice providers were not mentioned in the announcement.<\/p>\n<p>Ratcliffe said there have been some cases of suspected fraud. The Trump administration this week announced that it was <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/medicare-fraud-trump-vance-oz-health-hospice-534297fffb47e31e2a3906273f20e0b5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">deferring $1.3 billion<\/a> in Medicaid funding to California over fraud investigations that included hospice providers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNothing makes us more angry than incidents of fraud because it gives all of us a bad name,\u201d Ratcliffe said. \u201cWe would prefer CMS be targeted in their enforcement\u00a0rather\u00a0than a blanket\u00a0moratorium that covers everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kandyce Powell, executive director of the Maine Hospice Council, an advocacy group, said \u201cthere have been some bad actors across the country\u201d but that she hasn\u2019t heard of fraudulent activity among hospice operators in Maine. Powell said since the news broke on Wednesday, she\u2019s been fielding calls from anxious families. She\u2019s been advising them not to worry about programs closing in Maine because of the moratorium.<\/p>\n<p>At MaineHealth Home Health and Hospice Service, \u201cpatients currently receiving care, as well as individuals newly referred for home health and hospice services, will continue to be served by our clinical team without disruption,\u201d the health system said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Lewiston-based Andwell Health Partners, which operates home health and hospice services, released a statement saying services for its patients won\u2019t be disrupted by the moratorium.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe overwhelming majority of providers are delivering compassionate, high-quality care in good faith every day,\u201d Ken Albert, president and CEO of Andwell Health Partners, said in a statement. \u201cWe support targeted, data-driven approaches that remove bad actors while preserving access to essential services for the people who depend on care at home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A six-month moratorium on new home health and hospice agencies that provide Medicare services won\u2019t have much of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-646323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}