U.S. News
Hidden Frauds in LA Hospices Could Total Billions
Clear Facts
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Congress that hospice fraud in Los Angeles may have cost taxpayers about $5 billion.
- Federal officials suspended funding to nearly 450 suspicious Los Angeles hospice locations after an anti-fraud investigation.
- Investigators say fraudsters used fake addresses and recruited healthy people with offers of flat-screen TVs and cash.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about corruption in the hospice industry. He said hundreds of facilities were essentially fabricated to siphon money from the federal government.
Representative Beth Van Duyne asked about a California address tied to more than 100 hospice licenses.
Kennedy said his office has already shut down 500 fraudulent locations in the Los Angeles area without receiving complaints.
“We’ve already shut down 500 hospices and Los Angeles, and incidentally, we haven’t had one call from Congress or anybody else about complaining because clearly these were fraudulent.”
Kennedy said scammers enrolled people who were not terminally ill and paid them small sums to use their identities for large government billings.
He said many participants came from foreign communities, including some Armenian and Estonian groups.
He said these bad actors were stealing hundreds of millions individually.
“Typically, the stay in a hospice is about 18 days, these people stayed forever. Nothing ever happened because they weren’t actually there, they were just invented.”
The current administration’s anti-fraud task force is targeting similar schemes across multiple states. Similar reports of welfare and day-care fraud involving migrant communities have emerged in Minnesota, Maine, and Washington.
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