West Coast scammers are on notice as the Department of Justice launched a sweeping crackdown on healthcare fraud — including the hospice schemes that have plagued Los Angeles.
Officials at the U.S. Attorney for California’s Northern District in San Francisco said at a Thursday press conference that the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division has formed a “strike force” rooting out rampant healthcare fraud on the West Coast.
“If you steal from the American taxpayer, the DOJ and our law enforcement partners will do everything possible to award you free housing in federal prison,’ said Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald at the Thursday presser.
The team brings together federal prosecutors in California, Arizona and Nevada for a coordinated crackdown that will use data to root out healthcare fraud such as massive medical billing schemes that have been exposed in Los Angeles and other West Coast cities.
The prosecutors mentioned cases such as the indictment of an Arizona couple who submitted $1.2 billion in false claims to Medicare and other insurance for “medically unnecessary” wound grafts, receiving kickbacks for the bogus claims.
The couple preyed on seniors with wounds, ordering pricey graft care and billing insurance and accumulating $97 million across 28 bank accounts, four luxury vehicles — a Ferrari 488 Spider convertible, a Mercedes-Benz AMG Roadster, a Mercedes-Benz 4×4 Squared G-Wagon and a Mercedes-Benz GLE — and $348,000 in gold and silver.
Missakian mentioned other high-profile cases led by the U.S. Attorney Northern District, such as the prosecutions of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and Mark Schena, a Silicon Valley medical tech founder who took advantage of the Covid pandemic to defraud investors by selling a bogus blood test, presenting himself as a Nobel Prize contender.
Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said the strike force could look at hospice fraud and a wide range of other activity.
“We will be focusing on those types of schemes here,” he said, noting “many active investigations underway – this new strike force will turbocharge those efforts.”
The Post has previously exposed widespread hospice fraud in the Los Angeles area.
Watchdogs first publicly raised the alarm about hospice fraud in the area after noting a massive spike in the number of new hospice centers starting several years ago.
The Post revealed a network of suspicious hospice centers — including addresses where multiple agencies are listed at the same location.
The addresses include empty storefronts, an auto parts shop and other offices that are unoccupied for years in some cases.
Vice President JD Vance suspended the licenses of 447 facilities and 23 home health agencies that were deemed suspicious as part of a national anti-fraud task force.
