# Can My Practice Still Add a Home Health or Hospice Location With Medicare?

> CMS extended its Medicare home health and hospice enrollment freeze on November 12, 2026, but now lets agencies add branch locations in state.

Source: https://webillhealth.com/medicare-home-health-hospice-enrollment-freeze-extended/  
Publisher: WeBill Health  
Last updated: November 13, 2026

Yes, as of November 13, 2026. CMS announced on November 12, 2026 that it extended the nationwide Medicare enrollment freeze on new hospices and home health agencies for six more months, and for the first time it lets agencies already enrolled add a branch location in the same state and resubmit applications CMS denied under the original freeze.

## What did CMS actually change on November 12?

CMS extended the nationwide moratoria that have blocked new Medicare enrollment for hospices and home health agencies since May 13, 2026, for another six months, effective November 13, 2026. It paired that extension with a new allowance that did not exist under the original freeze: agencies already enrolled can add branch and satellite locations inside the same state, and location applications CMS denied earlier can be resubmitted starting November 13, 2026.

CMS published the update on its Provider Enrollment Moratoria page and its newsroom alongside revised Frequently Asked Questions. The restriction on initial enrollment applications, including nonexempt changes in majority ownership under federal regulation 42 CFR 424.550(b), remains fully in place nationwide.

## Does the freeze stop me from enrolling a brand new hospice or home health agency?

Yes. New initial enrollment applications for hospices and home health agencies submitted after November 13, 2026, plus certain changes in majority ownership that require enrolling as a new provider, are still denied nationwide for the duration of the extension. Existing agencies keep their enrollment and can continue billing and seeing patients without interruption.

## Can my agency add a new location right now?

Only within the state where the agency already holds its Medicare enrollment, and only if the agency is enrolled now, not a new one. CMS confirmed that location applications denied under the original moratorium can be resubmitted starting November 13, 2026, though CMS or state survey officials can still determine that a proposed move counts as a new operation and not simply an address change, which would place it back under the freeze.

## Why is CMS extending this instead of letting it expire?

CMS says the fraud conditions that justified the original moratoria have not abated. As evidence, CMS points to an October enforcement sweep in California that led to 145 provider revocations tied to more than $703 million in Medicare and Medicaid payments. CMS also notes that its CY 2027 Home Health Prospective Payment System final rule expands enrollment safeguards going forward, including making certain revocations retroactive to the date noncompliance began and requiring hospices and home health agencies to reenroll after qualifying ownership changes.

## What does this mean if my practice is not in home health or hospice?

Directly, nothing changes for your own enrollment or your claims. The freeze applies only to hospice and home health agency enrollment, not to physician, group, or other Part B provider enrollment. Indirectly, this extension is a signal of where CMS enforcement attention is sitting right now: new provider enrollment, location changes, and ownership changes, checked against claims data after the fact and not only at the moment a claim gets paid.

## What this means for practices with 1 to 15 providers

A home health or hospice freeze sounds like someone else’s problem until it touches a referral relationship, a joint venture, or a plan to add a service line. Independent practices that work alongside home health and hospice partners, or that are weighing whether to build one of those service lines themselves, have concrete steps to take this month.

* If your practice already operates a home health or hospice location and had an application denied earlier this year, confirm with your enrollment staff that it gets resubmitted through the normal CMS 855A process starting November 13, 2026, and not treated as a brand new initial enrollment.
* If you were planning to add a home health or hospice location across a state line, hold that plan. The new allowance only covers locations inside the state where the agency is already enrolled.
* If your practice has had any change in majority ownership in the past year, check whether that change triggered a required new enrollment under CMS rules. Those filings are still frozen nationwide regardless of this update.
* Whatever service lines your practice runs, treat your own CMS 855 enrollment record, addresses, ownership, and reassignment, as something to audit now. CMS is enforcing retroactive revocations tied to enrollment accuracy, not only claims accuracy, and an outdated enrollment file is a compliance exposure that sits quietly until a revalidation or a site visit finds it.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**When does the new six month freeze end?** 

CMS has not published an exact end date in its November 12, 2026 announcement. The original moratoria began May 13, 2026, so this extension runs six months past that cycle, into 2027, and CMS says it may extend again in further six month increments if conditions warrant.

**Does this freeze affect Medicare Part B physician enrollment?** 

No. The moratoria announced November 12, 2026 apply only to hospice and home health agency enrollment under Medicare, not to physician, group practice, or other Part B provider enrollment.

**What happens to a location application CMS already denied?** 

CMS says those applications can be resubmitted starting November 13, 2026, under the new allowance for in state branch and satellite locations, and not treated as a new initial enrollment.

**Where can I read the official CMS guidance?** 

CMS published the extension on its newsroom and on its Provider Enrollment Moratoria page, along with a revised set of Frequently Asked Questions covering both hospice and home health agencies.

If your own enrollment file, credentialing, and claims data have not had a close look in a while, WeBill Health’s [Revenue Defense Audit](https://webillhealth.com/revenue-defense-audit/) reviews the parts of your billing that create risk before a payer or CMS ever flags them.

### Sources

* [CMS Newsroom: CMS Extends and Modifies Nationwide Freeze on New Medicare Hospice and Home Health Enrollment for Six Months to Combat Fraud (November 12, 2026)](https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-extends-modifies-nationwide-freeze-new-medicare-hospice-home-health-enrollment-six-months-combat)
* [CMS: Provider Enrollment Moratoria](https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/Provider-Enrollment-Moratoria)
* [CMS: Home Health and Hospice Moratorium FAQs (PDF)](https://www.cms.gov/files/document/hh-hospice-moratorium-faqs.pdf)

WeBill Health is a specialty focused revenue cycle management partner for independent practices. Request a Revenue Defense Audit at https://webillhealth.com/form/