Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force has withheld $1.4 billion in federal funding from home health and hospice providers nationwide that are suspected of fraud, the vice president’s office confirmed in a statement Wednesday. The action follows earlier suspensions of providers in multiple states, including a significant operation in Los Angeles County.
Approximately 90 percent of the suspended providers have not contacted the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services since payments were paused, according to administration officials. Officials described many of the affected entities as long-term recipients of federal funds that failed to maintain required communication with regulators.
Last month, the task force suspended 447 hospices and 23 home health agencies in the Los Angeles area alone. Estimated theft from those providers exceeded $600 million.
The suspensions targeted operations that investigators identified through data analytics, site inspections, and reviews of billing patterns. Some providers were characterized as “ghost” operations, with physical locations appearing vacant or operating from non-medical sites such as retail stores or food establishments.
Los Angeles County has previously been identified by federal and state authorities as a significant area for hospice-related fraud concerns, with a high concentration of providers relative to the national average. A thorough analysis from CBS News, which included several figures provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, found that upwards of one-third of hospice facilities in Los Angeles demonstrate typical signs of fraudulent activity.
Nearly 500 hospices are concentrated within a 3-mile radius, the densest in the county, with 137 along Van Nuys Boulevard alone. Over half of these businesses displayed red flags indicating fraud when scrutinized.
“Large clusters of providers in one location suggest that the supply of providers may exceed the patient needs in that location. The providers may actually be billing for services to patients not located in the area or who are not eligible for hospice services,” state auditors noted in a 2022 report.
Similar actions have occurred in Minnesota and other states, building on prior enforcement efforts against schemes that included the “Feeding Our Future” case, in which hundreds of millions of dollars were defrauded from federal nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The vice president’s task force continues to stop the flow of taxpayer funds before they fall into the hands of fraudsters and deliver savings to the American people. This is great momentum in the fight for the President’s War on Fraud,” a Vance spokesperson announced in a statement.
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The task force’s work aligns with a broader administration review of Medicare and Medicaid programs. It has also prompted referrals of suspected fraudulent loans from the Small Business Administration totaling more than $22.2 billion, primarily from COVID-era programs
In California, state authorities recently announced arrests in a separate Medi-Cal hospice scheme that allegedly generated $267 million in fraudulent billings. The federal actions include intensified audits, use of data analytics to flag high-risk providers, and a nationwide six-month moratorium on new Medicare enrollments for certain home health and hospice agencies to prevent additional fraudulent operators from entering the programs.
