Federal officials said they arrested eight people in a set of health care fraud cases they estimated at $50 million in and around Los Angeles, including multiple allegations tied to hospice billing. Prosecutors said Thursday’s actions followed what they described as schemes involving hospice-care centers and other health care arrangements that they said targeted federal programs such as Medicare.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said five cases involved hospice-care centers in Glendale, Artesia, Tarzana and Simi Valley. In those cases, prosecutors alleged the centers billed Medicare for patients who were not terminally ill and did not qualify for hospice services, and prosecutors tied alleged misconduct to the way patients were identified and enrolled for hospice care.
Officials said one person was arrested in Idaho and another was arrested in Los Angeles in connection with allegations that the pair defrauded a West Coast labor union’s health care plans. Prosecutors also said an additional person was arrested in Los Angeles and accused of forging immigration medical documents.
Prosecutors said the largest Medicare fraud case announced Thursday involved an Artesia-based hospice center. The owner, officials said, submitted more than $9 million in fraudulent hospice claims and was paid more than $8.5 million on those claims, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The case details described alleged payments and referral arrangements connected to hospice enrollment. Prosecutors said the owner paid beneficiaries and marketers for referring purported hospice patients to her company, and prosecutors said at least one couple was promised $300 per month to sign up for hospice care even though they did not need it, and that they received unnecessary items including nutritional shakes, nonprescription vitamins and wheelchairs.
Authorities also announced charges against additional defendants in other hospice-related allegations. Prosecutors said another person charged in a hospice fraud case is serving federal prison time in Seattle after being convicted in a previous hospice fraud case in December 2024, and they said her husband was arrested as a co-defendant Thursday morning. Separately, authorities said a Los Angeles nurse used a hospice center in Tarzana to submit more than $3.8 million in claims and that Medicare paid about $3.4 million on those claims; officials said she had not yet been arrested.
The federal actions came as the Trump administration, according to the report, has made California and the Los Angeles area a focus of national anti-fraud efforts. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee, called the state the “kingdom of fraud” during a news conference announcing the charges, and Essayli also said officials were enforcing a “zero-tolerance policy for criminals who defraud American taxpayers.”
California’s response emphasized that state regulators have already taken enforcement steps related to hospice fraud. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said he signed a law in 2021 to stop providing new hospice licenses over fraud concerns and said the state revoked more than 280 hospice licenses in two years, while 300 providers were under investigation. Newsom wrote on X, “Glad the federal government is finally stepping up to do their part,” according to the report.
At the same news conference, Dr. Mehmet Oz said federal officials “took out” 221 hospices in the last 10 weeks, and he said, “We’re going to review every single hospice in California.” The report said Oz runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which certifies hospice providers for patients with government-subsidized health insurance, and CMS did not immediately respond to a request for clarification about what the “taken out” figure entailed.
The enforcement push also intersected with recent public dispute between Oz and Newsom’s office over hospice-fraud claims. In January, Oz posted a video alleging that roughly $3.5 billion in hospice and home care fraud had taken place in Los Angeles and that “quite a bit of it” was run by “the Russian Armenian mafia,” the report said; it added that Newsom’s office filed a civil rights complaint and said Oz had targeted Armenians with “baseless and racially charged allegations.” Oz’s agency also announced it is proposing a new, publicly available hospice scoring system that would use care metrics to better identify facilities that might be illegitimate.
The U.S. attorney’s office said court dates had not been set and that it was not immediately clear whether any of those arrested had legal representation. The report said the cases were among federal anti-fraud efforts highlighted across benefits programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, including actions taken after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March to create an anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance, which met for the first time last week.