A network of hundreds of hospices are under investigation for allegedly ripping tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers in Los Angeles Country and across California.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is now actively cutting off payments to suspicious operations across Los Angeles, which is now home to almost half of America’s end-of-life care providers.
A hospice industry insider provided the California Post with data dealing hundreds of suspicious hospices and home agencies across the state, including addresses where multiple agencies are listed at the same address.
A Post investigation found the addresses include empty storefronts, an auto parts shop and other offices that are unoccupied, some for years. Others don’t appear to exist at all.
The investigation comes as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz confirmed that “every single hospice in California is now under investigation.”
“30 to 40% of all the hospices in America are in Los Angeles, so there’s just no way they are all legitimate,” Dr. Oz said.
Dr. Oz confirmed Medicare payments were actively being ”cut off” from suspicious clinics, forcing them to prove they are legitimate.
“CMS has gone from a ‘pay and chase’ system of dealing with fraud to a ‘stop and clot,’” he said.
Dr. Oz said sophisticated new fraud detection tools, including AI, are helping investigators flag suspicious clinics — often based on their size, patient volume, and scope of operations.
One such center is St. Rita’s Home Health, which is registered to a vacant Van Nuys strip mall.
Despite being up for rent, the agency is still listed with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) as active, with data showing it billed Medicare about $4.3 million between 2019 and the first-half of 2025.
The agency has no website, and when the Post called to confirm it was still at 6360 Van Nuys Blvd, we were told the agency moved to Glendale and were provided a Yahoo email address to send questions.
Just about six miles away in North Hollywood, another building is listed as the operating address for 12 hospice and home health agencies — despite a large ”for rent” sign hanging out front.
But in 2023 and 2024, more than $20 million was billed to taxpayers from the building. The Post contacted eight of the providers at the North Hollywood address.
Pluto Home Health Care hung up when asked to confirm its location, Kaplan Hospice Care Inc, went to voicemail before being answered by ”Alexander from Southern California Auto.”
A representative for Confident Home Health claimed they moved to a different location, despite the North Hollywood address being listed on the CDPH database. When asked if they have a website, the representative replied: “I don’t know — we have an email.”
Queen of The Valley Home Health, which is still listed as active on CDPH’s website, is located in Sun Valley but when the Post went to the address, there was an auto store. The agency billed nearly $600,000 between 2023 and 2024, according to CMS data.
Dr. Oz said while he couldn’t comment on individual clinics, but said what The Post uncovered ‘’is exactly what we are looking at and what we are cracking down on.”
”Why would you have three separate hospices in one building – wouldn’t you have one? If they don’t meet a set of criteria we will cut off the funding; they will have to prove they are legitimate,” he said.
Dr. Ira Byock, one of the leading palliative care physicians in the country, told The Post the level of alleged fraud and the speed in which it had grown has ”completely overwhelmed” state and federal authorities tasked with dealing with it.
“There are roughly 7,000 hospice programs across the U.S. There are 91 in Florida, 39 in New York – and over 2,800 in California,” Dr. Byock said.
“Many of them have come into existence in California in the last four years,” he said, adding that “clearly some of these programs in southern California are not legitimate at all and seem like vehicles for fraudulent billing Medicare.”
Dr. Byock said the state is facing a “crisis” in home health and hospice care that puts the most vulnerable patients at risk, and urged California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Department of Justice need to crack down.
Sheila Clark, president and CEO of the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association (CHAPCA), told The Post “it does not make sense” for hospice and home health agencies to be listed at these locations.
“They do not look like a licensed and certified home health or hospice,” said Clark. “They don’t have the right signage posted, they’re in an odd location inside of a business that doesn’t make sense — an auto body shop.”
Clark said she has been fighting to stop hospice and home health fraud in LA county since 2019.
“I have been living with beneficiaries, with patients, families, senior Medicare patrol,” Clark told The Post. “I have been living this.”
The 2022 California Hospice and Licensure and Oversight report delivered a scathing report on rampant fraud in home health and hospice, saying “weak controls have created the opportunity for large-scale fraud and abuse.”
The Post contacted California Department of Public Health about the hospice and home health agencies in this article, including whether those locations have been inspected or are under review for potential fraud or violations.
The department confirmed all sport identified by the California Post were still licensed.
However, once they are inspected and receive certification, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services takes over inspections, they said.
”The CDPH may only conduct federal onsite investigations with approval by CMS.”