Health Care Regulation and Oversight

The FBI arrested Dr. Gladwin and psychologist Amelou Gill in an early‑morning SWAT raid Thursday in San Dimas, California, accusing the couple of fraudulently billing Medicare for $7.45 million through their company 626 Hospice, which operates as St. Francis Palliative Care and reportedly has a 97% five‑year survival rate—an extreme anomaly for true end‑of‑life care. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the Gills are among 15 defendants being announced, with more than half tied to hospice schemes, and noted that some suspects are already in prison allegedly orchestrating fraud from behind bars. The case stems from a broader CBS‑documented pattern in Los Angeles County, where more than 700 of roughly 1,800 hospices triggered multiple red flags identified in a 2022 state audit, including very low patient counts, excessive billing, recycled staff across companies, clusters of dozens of hospices in a single office building, and high rates of supposedly terminal patients later discharged alive. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Trump‑appointed official overseeing Medicare, and Vice President JD Vance—who now leads a GOP anti‑fraud initiative—have made Southern California hospice abuse a political flashpoint, while California officials argue the problem is national and say they have been running parallel state enforcement for years. With HHS’s inspector general estimating at least $198.1 million in suspect hospice payments nationwide, House Republicans on the Oversight Committee have opened an inquiry into "rampant hospice fraud" and are pressing Gov. Gavin Newsom over how his state allowed such a dense cluster of questionable providers to flourish.