CMS let the DMEPOS moratorium lapse on schedule. Now comes the backlog.

The enrollment moratorium that CMS imposed on DMEPOS suppliers on February 27 expired today. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services let the six-month clock run out without announcing an extension.

That is the factual update. The context matters as much as the headline.

What the previous six months actually closed

The moratorium was a nationwide pause on new applications to enter the DMEPOS supplier program — the billing category under which Medicare covers prosthetics, orthotics, and durable medical equipment. Existing enrolled providers kept billing throughout. What the freeze stopped was the front door: new clinics, newly credentialed practitioners, practices expanding to a second location, and providers whose enrollment had lapsed could not move applications forward.

The moratorium’s stated purpose was fraud control. DMEPOS enrollment has a documented history of bad actors obtaining billing numbers to submit fraudulent claims. A pause on new applications limits how fast that entry point can be exploited.

Its collateral cost was a six-month lid on network expansion — heaviest in the areas that already had the thinnest provider coverage. A new O&P clinic trying to open in a rural county, a clinician relocating to an underserved market, a solo practitioner changing practice addresses — all of those situations hit the same closed door.

What “moratorium expired” actually does

The DMEPOS supplier enrollment window is now open. Applications that were waiting can move forward. Providers who needed to re-enroll because their enrollment lapsed, their practice changed structure, or they were adding a location can now submit.

One open question from the moratorium’s end: whether CMS would let the freeze lapse cleanly or replace it with enhanced screening requirements applied as a condition of reopening. Enhanced screening that creates a new processing bottleneck is functionally similar to the moratorium in effect, even if the formal mechanism is different. As of the expiration, CMS had not announced a replacement requirement of that kind. The absence of a formal announcement is not the same as a confirmed clean reopening — it means the terms of the reopening are not fully visible yet.

The O&P profession’s trade associations, including AOPA, have been tracking the enrollment path closely. Their published guidance is the right place to watch for any updated screening conditions CMS applies as the queue begins processing.

The queue is not the moratorium

What the expiration does not do: it does not create an immediate expansion of the Medicare-participating O&P network.

DMEPOS enrollment under ordinary circumstances involves accreditation, site inspection, and processing time measured in months. The moratorium produced six months of accumulated demand from providers who wanted to enroll and could not. That demand does not clear on August 28. It enters a queue that will work through at the pace of CMS processing — which has historically not been fast.

For a patient in an area with limited enrolled provider options, the practical picture is: the ceiling on new providers has been lifted, but the room fills at the pace of the queue. A new clinic nearby that was waiting to enroll can now apply. When it clears processing and appears in a Medicare plan’s directory and can bill for care is a separate question, and the honest answer is probably late fall at the earliest for applications submitted this week.

What providers can do now

If a practice was blocked from enrolling or re-enrolling during the moratorium — a change of address, a new location, an enrollment irregularity that would ordinarily have been corrected by resubmission — the path forward is to submit now. The compliance bind that accumulated during the freeze, where problems could not be resolved because the window was closed, can move toward resolution.

The first step is confirming with your DMEPOS accreditor what the current enrollment requirements look like, and whether CMS has published any updated guidance as part of the moratorium’s close. AOPA and the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists (AAOP) track these procedural changes.

What patients can do now

If you are currently receiving care from an enrolled provider, today changes nothing about your immediate situation. Your provider’s enrollment is intact; your claims process as they have.

If you have been in a thin-network situation — unable to find an enrolled in-network O&P provider within a reasonable distance — a search you ran a few months ago may produce different results by late fall, as newly enrolled providers clear the queue and appear in Medicare’s Care Compare directory. It is worth checking again in several months if the network gap in your area was the problem.

If you have been paying out of pocket or going without care because of an enrollment gap, continue documenting it. Network adequacy complaints to a state insurance commissioner carry the most weight when the record is specific: dates, distances, names of providers contacted and their enrollment status at the time.

What this means

The moratorium’s expiration closes one policy question and opens another. The question now is how quickly the enrollment backlog resolves — and whether the O&P provider network actually grows in the markets where the moratorium’s freeze landed hardest.

The desk noted when the moratorium was imposed that a six-month freeze in a market with documented access gaps would not resolve on a fixed date. That was accurate. The ceiling is gone; the room does not fill itself.

Monitoring how many new applications clear in the next quarter, and where those providers are geographically, is the work of the months ahead. The organizations tracking it know the stakes.

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Amputee News does not provide individualized insurance, billing, or benefits advice. Medicare DMEPOS provider enrollment status and network availability vary by location and change over time. For questions about your coverage or to find enrolled providers in your area, contact your Medicare plan or call 1-800-MEDICARE. State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) counselors can help navigate access issues at no cost.