EXCLUSIVE — House Republicans are looking to the top watchdog at the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate suspected Medicare fraud schemes in California that mirror the taxpayer theft in Minnesota.
Republican leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in conjunction with the House Committee on Ways and Means, sent a letter on Tuesday to the HHS inspector general’s office asking what it is doing to address concerns about scammers in California allegedly stealing millions from Medicare.
The letter, obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner, cites several reports indicating large-scale abuse of Medicare funds by fraudsters operating home health and hospice agencies across Los Angeles County.
Among them, a 2022 report from the California state auditor found “indicators strongly suggest[ing] that a network or networks of individual perpetrators in Los Angeles County are engaging in a large and organized effort to defraud the Medicare and Medi-Cal hospice programs.”
These indicators of fraud and abuse included “rapid, disproportionate growth in the number of hospice agencies; excessive geographic clustering of hospice agencies; long durations of hospice services; high rates of patients discharged alive; and employees working for a large number of hospice agencies.”
In one case of “suspiciously high” numbers of hospice centers clustered together, the state auditor’s report counted 112 different licensed agencies that were located at the same address in Van Nuys, California.
State auditors estimated that hospice agencies in Los Angeles County likely overbilled Medicare by $105 million in 2019 alone.
HOW MINNESOTA’S SOMALI FRAUD INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX HAS STOLEN MILLIONS FROM MEDICAID
In the letter, the lawmakers note that there were roughly 58 million seniors nationwide in 2022, with about 1.49 million of them, or 2.5% of the nation’s senior population, residing in Los Angeles County at the time. That year, 5,900 hospice care agencies were in operation throughout the United States. Out of those, Los Angeles County accounted for over 31% of the country’s total number of hospice centers.
Between 2019 and 2023, the number of home health agencies in the U.S. decreased 6%, but HHAs increased 46% in Los Angeles County during that period.
More than 1,400 new Los Angeles County HHAs enrolled in Medicare in the last five years, representing over half of California’s HHAs and nearly 14% of all HHAs in the U.S.
The inordinate volume of HHAs in Los Angeles County was also mentioned by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission in its March 2025 report to Congress. According to the MedPAC report, the number of HHAs participating in the Medicare program increased by 3.4% in 2023, an uptick “due almost entirely to growth in the number of HHAs in Los Angeles County.” Excluding this county, the number of participating HHAs actually declined by 2.8%.
Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; John Joyce (R-PA), chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee; and Morgan Griffith (R-VA), chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, co-signed the letter addressed to HHS Inspector General Thomas March Bell.
“The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has an extensive history of digging deeper into matters where program integrity has been compromised,” Guthrie, Joyce, and Griffith said in a joint statement. “This letter is crucial in our commitment to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in federal health care programs.”
They stressed that Republicans, during this congressional term, have focused on advancing legislation to protect vulnerable Americans, especially seniors.
“Continued oversight is crucial to uphold the integrity of programs that serve our most vulnerable populations,” the committee leaders added. “We applaud the ongoing work being conducted by HHS-OIG in cracking down on the fraud that has occurred, and we look forward to addressing the larger-scale scheme that is draining public resources from Americans who need these services the most.”
Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Medicare home health and hospice fraud directly undermines the safety and reliability of care for America’s most vulnerable seniors.
“With $1.2 billion in improper payments in home health claims and the inspector general reporting $198 million in suspected hospice fraud, Gavin Newsom’s California could just as well be another Minnesota,” Smith told the Washington Examiner. “The Ways and Means Committee will not hesitate to use our broad oversight authority to get to the bottom of this and protect taxpayers and vulnerable patients against these bad actors.”
‘CALIFRAUDIA’ REPORT PUTS STATE FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE LOSSES AT $250 BILLION
The congressional Republicans are requesting a meeting with the HHS OIG by Jan. 23 to discuss the evidence of massive Medicare fraud occurring in Los Angeles County and any recommended actions to stop ongoing or prevent future fraud.
“The illegal actions by a few impact patient care and public trust across the entire sector,” the lawmakers wrote. “As Members of Congress committed to improving patient outcomes and reducing fraud in the health system, not only do we want to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, but more importantly, we must do all we can to ensure the safety and wellbeing of beneficiaries, who are often unwitting pawns in fraudsters’ illegal activities.”
