Since President Trump took office, we have seen an Administration-wide push to eliminate unnecessary regulations. Back in January, President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO), Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, requiring agencies to get rid of ten existing regulations for every new regulation introduced. This builds on deregulatory efforts from President Trump’s first term, where agencies were asked to get rid of two regulations for every new regulation introduced—now at a 5x larger scale. The goal of this effort is to increase government efficiency and reduce the administrative burden for stakeholders. As part of complying with the EO, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sought public feedback on which regulations to eliminate through a request for information (RFI) on a deregulatory plan to lower healthcare costs and empower healthcare providers.
ANA has long-identified persistent regulatory barriers that nurses face and welcomed the opportunity to provide comment to HHS. In ANA’s official response to the RFI, the association detailed how HHS’ deregulatory efforts can remove barriers to nursing practice and advance our policy priorities by action such as:
- removing regulatory barriers to allow advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) to practice at the top of their license,
- eliminating overly burdensome collaboration and supervision requirements,
- removing “incident to” billing from Medicare reimbursement,
- making COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities permanent,
- and banning the use of non-compete agreements for nurses in Medicare and Medicaid facilities.
Notably, this RFI from HHS is not the first health-related deregulatory RFI of this Administration—in May, ANA responded to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) RFI on deregulation. CMS continues to promote this RFI in its 2026 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Pay System and Physician Fee Schedule proposed rules. This signals that the deregulation efforts will remain a key priority for the Administration. ANA will continue to respond to opportunities to weigh in on deregulation efforts as we advocate for nurses and advance nursing priorities.