OPINION:
Los Angeles County has almost 2,000 hospices, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, says half of them could be fraudulent, siphoning billions of federal taxpayer dollars while serving no patients.
“We believe that many of them are created by the Russian mafia,” Dr. Oz told Fox Business last week. “In fact, when you try to bust these folks, sometimes foreign nationals run back to their own country.”
Dr. Oz visited Los Angeles’ Van Nuys neighborhood and called out a nearby four-block radius that he claimed was home to 42 hospices. CBS News visited the area last month and found 89 licensed hospice companies in a small three-story glass building, raising concerns because the “number of agencies in these areas likely exceeds the number of patients who need services.”
Their investigation found that although the hospices were listed in the building’s directory, many had since moved or no longer existed. Federal records show regulators visited the plaza multiple times from 2021 to 2025 and found nearly 400 violations at 75 companies. One inspection found a hospice social worker writing about a family’s sadness after the passing of a loved one; however, there was no evidence that the patient had actually died.
The California State Auditor’s 2022 report found that Los Angeles County had a 1,500% increase in hospice companies since 2010, resulting in six times the national average of hospice providers. Dr. Oz said Los Angeles County alone accounts for about $3.5 billion in improper or fraudulent federal payments. Reports show that hospice providers in this area billed Medicare an average of $29,000 per patient, more than double the national average of $13,200.
Dr. Oz blames Los Angeles County and the state of California, which regulates these hospices, for being “tolerant” of taxpayer theft. He accuses state and local regulators of being “perfectly fine” with the issue. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, shot back that more than 280 hospice licenses had been revoked in the state in the past two years, and 300 more were under investigation for potential revocation.
Earlier this year, Mr. Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Dr. Oz for claims against Armenian communities in the Golden State. He alleged that Dr. Oz had “spewed baseless and racially charged allegations” and could discourage the use of hospice and home care programs by touring Los Angeles’ Van Nuys neighborhood.
No, this isn’t racism. It’s accountability. The Trump administration is rightly focused on rooting out federal waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money, especially after high-profile cases such as those in Minnesota.
Last month, President Trump appointed Vice President J.D. Vance to head an anti-fraud task force, and Mr. Vance’s team is working with Dr. Oz in cracking down on Medicaid and Medicare fraud in California. Shortly after his appointment, Mr. Vance’s team paused federal funding for 70 hospice and home health care providers in Los Angeles County.
“As the task force to root out waste, fraud and abuse ramps up its work, we expect [the number of potentially fraudulent hospice and home health providers] to grow exponentially,” a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital. Mr. Vance’s task force will reportedly use an artificial intelligence detection system to identify fraudulent Medicaid claims nationwide.
The American public deserves better than to be ripped off by criminals and fraudsters who deny honest and proper facilities the taxpayer money needed to provide good care. It is about time an administration took waste, fraud and abuse seriously and held states to a high standard.
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