As reported by LeadingAge National, in alignment with President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) on promoting competition and the administration’s commitment to transparency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is releasing ownership data for all Medicare-certified hospice and home health agencies. For the first time, anyone can now review detailed information on the ownership of more than 6,000 hospices and 11,000 home health agencies certified to participate in the Medicare program on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) website.

Over the last year, LeadingAge National provided feedback to CMS on this issue in its comments on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Hospice Proposed Rule, the Calendar Year (CY) 2023 Home Health Proposed Rule, and the CY 2023 Outpatient Prospective Payment Proposed Rule. Specifically, LeadingAge National asked “CMS to make data on mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and changes of ownership public for Medicare certified home health and hospice agencies.”

Not-for-profit providers have a longstanding requirement to make ownership and the mission of their entity public information. Making public this information for for-profits has been an advocacy point on many levels for some time. LeadingAge National's press release on HHS’s announcement is available here, and CMS’s press release is here.

Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871