In a move to fight fraud, the Trump administration established a nationwide six-month moratorium blocking approval of any new federally supported home health or hospice care.

At first glance, that might seem a reasonable response. Months of investigation into sham care providers in Los Angeles County connected to organized crime have raised concerns that the system is subject to widespread abuse.

Maybe so. It’s good that President Donald Trump ordered U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to take decisive action. The public’s interests must be protected, but corrective actions must be applied deliberately and carefully.

The “war on fraud” Trump launched in his most recent State of the Union address put the Mehmet Oz, head of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, to work busily decertifying providers whose billing raised serious red flags. He’s pressuring states to strengthen oversight, which is warranted and should be applauded, but within context.

Blue California’s failure to police the actions of self-described healthcare providers to whom it passed federal funds should not be a reason to deny services to honest, needed patients provided by honest operators in red Texas. Without meaning to, Oz’s strategy for combating fraud is forcing millions of critically ill Americans into more expensive, hospital-based end-of-life care. And we, the taxpayers, get the bill.

With the federal government in debt to the tune of $30 trillion, no one can deny that finding any possible savings, especially by fighting fraud, is an urgent matter. The broad-stroke approach to enforcement does that, but in a way that adversely impacts legitimate, hardworking providers as well as those in their care.

Bad actors have bilked taxpayers of billions. By better enforcing existing regulations, the Trump administration could effectively force states to rid the system of criminals while strengthening Americans’ access to two of Medicare’s most important and popular benefits.

Millions of patients utilize home health and hospice services each year. The former is a preferred pathway for seniors to receive skilled nursing care at home, allowing them to be closer to loved ones in a familiar environment. The latter is an important benefit established under President Ronald Reagan that allows Medicare beneficiaries with less than six months to live to receive palliative care, social support, and to die with dignity.

These are vital options, important to society, individual families, and the healthcare establishment. The national moratorium is doing harm. Federal bureaucrats are not bound by the Hippocratic oath, which doesn’t distinguish between fraudsters and high-quality, compliant providers. It treats them the same, and we’re better than that.

Fraud in this area is most prevalent in cities like Los Angeles, New York City, and Minneapolis. The national approach taken by the Trump administration spreads its fraud-fighting resources much too thinly, making the fight more difficult. Even worse, it creates a serious barrier to patient access in rural communities where shortages of home health and hospice providers are already obvious.

Workforce challenges plague this sector like they do all areas of healthcare. Without the opening of new facilities, needy patients will have to wait until they can no longer. With rural hospitals shuttering and home care access declining, what will these people and their families do? Patients from Appalachia to the Pacific Northwest now have fewer options. And those will be more limited still if the national enrollment moratorium continues.

The American Hospital Association put it this way: “There are many rural and underserved areas of the country where hospitals struggle to find appropriate discharge locations for patients, and home health agencies and hospice providers are essential to ensuring timely and safe next levels of care. This moratorium may exacerbate these existing difficulties.”

Eliminating Medicare fraud is a good policy. Trump, Kennedy, and Oz are right to make it a top priority.

Moving forward, they should take a targeted approach, hunting where the ducks are rather than where they aren’t, rather than paint with a broad brush. This will ensure patients’ access to home health and hospice care across all communities continues, instead of leaving to languish in a hospital when they can’t find a home-based care provider. That doesn’t fight fraud but does drive costs up dramatically.

We want Washington to be both smart and compassionate. The policy should be modified or repealed.