Elder Care and Hospice Oversight

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz vowed a crackdown on hospice fraud — saying he will decertify providers found to be defrauding Medicare and even aiming to take “half the hospices in California” off the program — after a CBS analysis found more than 700 of roughly 1,800 Los Angeles County hospices trigger state-defined fraud red flags and CMS issued a checklist to trigger targeted on-site inspections. The move follows congressional reporting and data showing large, concentrated billing — including nearly $600 million billed from 2021–2024 by home‑health agencies tied to one provider number (about $210 million in 2024, with 95% in L.A. County), an HHS OIG estimate of $198.1 million in suspected hospice fraud nationwide, and documented patient-level harms, while California officials say they have revoked about 280 hospice licenses and created a multi‑agency task force.