DOJ Busts $500M Hospice Fraud Ring

0:00It's April 3rd, welcome in. This is Durham News Today, where local news meets AI. The U.S. Department of Justice just dropped a massive health care fraud bust across Southern California arresting eight people, including doctors and nurses, with more than a dozen other spacing charges. The scam centered on fake hospice care, where crooks recruited healthy folks to pretend they were dying patients, raking in hundreds of millions from, Medicare on bogus claims. Doctors highlighted a Kovina couple, 66-year-old psychologist, Gladwin Gil, and his nurse-wife Amelou, who ran a shady hospice out of Glendale. They filed over $5,200,000 in phony bills, and Medicare showed out more than $4,000,000 before anyone caught on. At the press conference, first assistant U.S. Attorney Bill S.A. Lee teamed up with the FBI and sent us from Medicare and Medicaid Services Head. Met Medaos to break it down. Los Lawyers pushing back hard, denying everything and gearing up for trial.

1:03Oz laid out plans for a full review of every hospice in California this year to weed out the fakes, pointing to red flags like sky-high patient, survival rates. Anything over 50% for folks supposed to last just six months, screams fraud. He stood firm on stat showing half of Los Angeles County hospices look suspicious, even amid backlash over a disputed video claim. The governor Newsom fired back at federal finger pointing, noting his state has suspended over 280 licenses and blocked new ones. For years to fight this mess, shifting the heat right back to where the money flows.