The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is extending its moratorium for an additional six months on new enrollments for ambulance providers for a number of counties in the Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas. A link to the upcoming notice in the Federal Register can be found here.

In making the decision to extend the moratorium, CMS cited “a high risk of fraud, waste, or abuse in these provider and supplier types within these geographic locations was then confirmed by CMS’ data analysis, which relied on factors the agency identified as strong indicators of risk.” CMS also considered the availability of providers within the jurisdictions where it was imposing the moratorium and concluded there would be no inability on patients to access care based on the level of current providers within the geographic areas. The moratorium affects Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller Counties.

In other words, there are already too many ambulance providers in the Houston area who are enrolled in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. This moratorium has the effect of preventing any new ambulance services from billing the Medicare or Medicaid systems because of lack of access to those programs.