I have been following the investigations of hospice fraud in California that were initiated by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as he began reviewing the state’s use of Medicaid funding.
His initial assessment was that federal monies were being used for the healthcare of illegal aliens, which is prohibited. As a result of his investigation, Oz is demanding that California pay back $1 billion.
As the head of CMS launched a high‑profile push on alleged hospice and home‑health fraud in California, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office accused Oz of “racism” because of his Turkish origins, and the alleged fraudsters are Russian-Armenian.
Nick Shirley, who exposed the daycare fraud in Minnesota, took his investigative skills to California to show how easy it is to commit hospice fraud there.
In his 40-minute video, Shirley noted that the fraud in “Minnesota was big, but California is even bigger.”
Shirley’s findings follow CBS News’s serious review of the allegations.
The CBS News analysis reveals that over 700 of the roughly 1,800 hospices in LA County, trigger multiple red flags for fraud as defined by the state….Federal inspection records show regulators visited multiple suites in the Van Nuys building between 2021 and 2025 and found deficiencies. Nearly 40 companies in the CBS News analysis, for instance, share key personnel.State auditors consider the overlap of administrators, medical directors or owners between multiple companies a potential red flag because “it raises questions about whether they are actually participating in the operations of any or all of those agencies.”CBS News reached out to the 56 hospice offices whose state and federal data indicate they have five or more red flags. Many of the phone numbers were either disconnected or went straight to voicemail. One instructed the caller to text a different number, which turned out to be invalid. At several of the businesses, however, the representatives who answered the phones denied any fraud and told CBS News they run legitimate hospices that serve real patients. They objected to any allegation they are part of the fraud in the hospice industry.
The actual numbers are staggering.
There are about 1,800 licensed hospice providers in Los Angeles County, which is roughly six times the national average when adjusted for the size of its elderly population, according to CBS News. In 2022, California’s state auditor sounded the alarm as LA County saw a 1,500% increase in hospice companies since 2010.In a letter to Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators dated March 29, 2022, the California state auditor flagged that there had been “a rapid increase in the number of hospice agencies with no clear correlation to increased need.”
Shirley discovered that two facilities charged $6,000 per person.
Another hospice received $1.3 million. Shirley found the location empty. No employees. No equipment. No furniture.
What is the state doing about it? The CBS report goes on to note…very little in the way of meaningful enforcement action.
None of the hospices flagged in the CBS News analysis turned up in California’s enforcement actions database. Since 2022, when the state published its audit report, California’s Department of Public Health has issued enforcement actions against seven hospice facilities statewide — despite the state auditor warning that fraud was rampant.State attorney general Rob Bonta says his office has brought criminal fraud cases against more than 100 defendants in the hospice industry and about two dozen civil cases. But he acknowledged that more needs to be done.“We need to be responsive to the red flags and react to them, not just count them,” Bonta said. “Our main lane is the accountability side, the criminal investigations, the civil investigations. That’s after the damage is done though, unfortunately.”
Independent investigator Nick Shirley has also been following the California hospice trail. Fox 11 in Los Angeles featured some of his findings.
Despite a stable population, Los Angeles County has seen a massive 1,000% surge in hospice care spending, now accounting for 10% of all U.S. home healthcare expenditures, according to Shirley, who claimed the financial growth is coupled with systemic issues in government-funded daycare, where programs riddled with violations continue to receive funding.Shirley and his team visited multiple locations in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas registered as daycare or hospice centers, only to find empty buildings, residential homes, or padlocked gates.Shirley claims to have uncovered over $170 million in fraud, stating these individuals “live in luxury with no consequences.”
I sure hope CBS News continues digging into the hospice fraud in California.
I also hope CBS News begins looking into all the other types of fraud that is occurring in this state…not only for the sake of Californians, but those in the rest of the nation as well.
Perhaps the most astonishing part of this developing story is not just the scale of the fraud, but how long it took for establishment journalists to start connecting the dots.
California officials have clearly tried to brush off legitimate oversight concerns by crying “racism” or “politicization,” while billions of taxpayer dollars quietly evaporated into a network of fake hospices and fraudulent companies.
So yes…credit where it is due. CBS has finally taken a break from narrative construction to do some bona fide investigative reporting. If only more of our media followed suit, maybe the public would hear fewer lectures about “equity” and more exposure of the corruption bleeding our healthcare system dry.
It would be so refreshing if investigative reporters actually did some investigative reporting instead of serving as public-relations spokespeople for the politically connected and the perpetually offended. American taxpayers and our legal citizens who have legitimate needs deserve at least that much.
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