A congressional hearing last week put numbers to a problem that's been unfolding in the news for months: a sprawling pattern of Medicare hospice fraud, concentrated in Los Angeles County, where investigators found more than 700 of the area's roughly 1,800 hospices showing multiple red flags for fraud. At the center of the story is a single physician whose name appeared on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 hospices in a single year — more than any other doctor in the state. His Medicare billing privileges have since been revoked. But the story matters to Medicare beneficiaries everywhere for a specific, practical reason: hospice fraud doesn't require you to answer a scam phone call or click a bad link. It can happen to your Medicare record without you ever being directly contacted at all — and once you're enrolled, getting out can be surprisingly hard.
📋Quick Summary
- CBS News investigated Los Angeles County hospice providers and found over 700 of roughly 1,800 hospices show multiple state-defined red flags for fraud.
- One physician, Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, was tied to Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 hospices in 2024, resulting in $71.7 million in reimbursements; CMS has since revoked his ability to bill Medicare.
- A congressional hearing on April 21, 2026 examined the scale of the problem, with lawmakers from both parties calling for stronger enforcement.
- Unlike phone or text scams, hospice fraud can enroll a beneficiary without their direct knowledge or a scam call ever reaching them.
- Once fraudulently enrolled, beneficiaries have reported spending hours trying to get disenrolled and restore their normal Medicare coverage.
- Checking your Medicare Summary Notice regularly is the most reliable way to catch this specific type of fraud early.
What CBS News Found — and Why It's Different From Other Medicare Fraud
Most Medicare fraud coverage focuses on schemes that target beneficiaries directly — a phone call asking for your Medicare number, a text claiming you need a new card, equipment mailed that you never ordered. Hospice fraud, as documented in this investigation, works differently, and that difference is exactly what makes it harder for beneficiaries to catch on their own.
CBS News examined the business and financial records of every hospice currently operating in Los Angeles County, applying the same red-flag indicators that California state auditors use to identify potential fraud. The investigation found that more than 700 of the roughly 1,800 hospices in the county triggered multiple of those red flags — a scale that reporters and lawmakers alike have described as symptomatic of an industry that expanded far faster than oversight could keep pace with. Sheila Clark, president and CEO of the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association, described what she called "ground zero" for the problem: empty offices with mail piled up, registered as active hospice providers despite showing no real signs of delivering care.
At the center of the reporting is Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, whose name appeared on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 different hospices in 2024 — the most recent full year of available data. For comparison, the average California hospice physician cares for roughly 140 patients annually; Bhuva's claimed patient volume was roughly twenty times that figure, spread across a number of facilities that investigators and advocates say is itself a defined red flag under California's fraud indicators. The claims connected to his name resulted in $71.7 million in Medicare reimbursements. When CBS News reached him directly, Bhuva said he doubted the figures and noted there's no statutory limit on how many hospices a physician can be affiliated with — technically true, but exactly the kind of pattern regulators say should trigger scrutiny. He declined to answer further questions. CMS, under Dr. Mehmet Oz, subsequently revoked his ability to bill Medicare.
Hospice is a Part A benefit under Original Medicare, which is worth understanding before you review your own record — see how Medicare Parts A, B, C, and D actually work.
Sources: CBS News — Hospice fraud hearing exposes toll of suspected scams; CBS News — The most connected hospice doctor in California; Fox News — Oz confirms doctor's Medicare billing revoked.
Your Medicare Summary Notice — mailed every three months and also viewable anytime through your Medicare.gov account — lists every service billed under your Medicare number, including hospice care. If you or a family member has never knowingly enrolled in hospice but a Summary Notice shows hospice claims, that's a direct sign of potential fraudulent enrollment. Check this document now if you have any reason for concern, particularly if you or a loved one recently received unexpected calls or visits from an unfamiliar "care coordinator" or home health representative. If you find hospice claims you didn't authorize, call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) immediately and ask specifically to report suspected fraudulent hospice enrollment — this is treated as a distinct, urgent category of fraud report.
Why It's So Hard to Get Un-Enrolled — and Why That Matters
One of the most consequential details in the CBS reporting, and the detail most relevant to Medicare beneficiaries specifically, is what happens after a fraudulent hospice enrollment occurs: getting out of it is often far harder than getting into it.
Enrolling in hospice care under Medicare requires a physician's certification that a patient has a terminal prognosis with a life expectancy of six months or less — and choosing hospice means electing to receive palliative, comfort-focused care instead of standard curative treatment for the terminal condition. This is precisely why fraudulent enrollment causes real harm beyond financial loss to the Medicare program: a beneficiary fraudulently enrolled in hospice may find that their regular Medicare coverage for other conditions becomes entangled with the hospice election, creating confusion about what's actually covered and complicating access to unrelated medical care they still need.
Advocates who work directly with affected families describe a consistent pattern: victims spend hours on the phone trying to find someone who can actually process their disenrollment, often being transferred between the hospice provider, their Medicare Advantage plan if applicable, and Medicare directly, with no single point of contact clearly responsible for reversing the fraudulent election. For a beneficiary who is elderly, possibly managing cognitive changes, or without a family member actively helping navigate the system, this bureaucratic maze can leave a fraudulent hospice election in place far longer than it should be — sometimes long enough to disrupt actual needed medical care.
This is why the practical guidance in this article emphasizes prevention and early detection over after-the-fact correction: catching a fraudulent enrollment within the first billing cycle, before it compounds, is dramatically easier than untangling it months later. A formal revocation of a hospice election is filed through Medicare and the provider — a free SHIP counselor in your state can walk you through the paperwork at no cost.
Source: CBS News congressional hearing coverage.
Related Medicare Updates
✅What This Means for You
Explore Further
The Bigger Picture — A Congressional Response Taking Shape
Last week's hearing signals that this story is moving from investigative journalism into active policy response, which matters for understanding where enforcement and protection efforts may be headed.
At the April 21 hearing, lawmakers from both parties acknowledged the scale of the problem, even as they differed on its causes and solutions. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas, pushed back on purely partisan framing of the issue, noting that hospice fraud has occurred in states led by governors from both parties and arguing that "tough talk is just not a substitute for an effective congressional response and effective enforcement." The hearing followed a broader pattern of federal action already underway: California state investigators have conducted raids tied to the broader hospice fraud pattern, and a separate case resulted in the arrest of a married couple accused of defrauding Medicare of nearly $7.5 million through fraudulent hospice claims — part of a wider crackdown that has reportedly led to charges against more than 20 people in a $267 million fraud scheme involving hospices with what investigators described as zero legitimate patients.
The Acting Attorney General has characterized healthcare fraud, including this pattern, as part of a broader federal enforcement priority, and CMS's revocation of Dr. Bhuva's billing privileges is being cited as an early example of faster administrative action against providers connected to fraud red flags, even before criminal charges are filed. Whether this translates into structural changes — tighter hospice certification requirements, faster fraud-detection systems, easier disenrollment processes for victims — is still an open, developing question that beneficiaries and advocates will be watching closely in the coming months. For how enforcement and reporting channels fit together, see our guide to official Medicare fraud reporting resources.
Sources: CBS News hearing coverage; Fox News — Dr. Oz revokes Medicare access.
📊Hospice Fraud Investigation: Key Facts
What to Actually Do — Whether You're Concerned or Just Being Careful
Whether you have a specific reason for concern or simply want to build good habits given this story, a few concrete steps meaningfully reduce your exposure to this type of fraud.
Review your Medicare Summary Notice every time it arrives — this is true regardless of this story, but it's worth restating given how directly this fraud pattern depends on notices going unread. The document lists every service billed under your Medicare number in the prior three months. If you see hospice care, home health services, or any care category you don't recognize authorizing, that's your signal to investigate immediately rather than assume it's an administrative mix-up. You can view the same claims data anytime at your Medicare.gov account.
If you're helping manage Medicare for a parent or older family member, ask them directly and periodically whether they've had any recent visits from unfamiliar healthcare representatives, been asked to sign paperwork they didn't fully understand, or received calls offering enhanced in-home care services. Fraudulent hospice enrollment schemes have specifically relied on beneficiaries — particularly those living alone or managing cognitive decline — signing consent paperwork without fully understanding what they were agreeing to.
If you discover a fraudulent hospice enrollment, act quickly and document everything. Call 1-800-MEDICARE and explicitly report suspected fraudulent hospice enrollment, request formal revocation of the hospice election, and ask for a case number to track the resolution. Your State Health Insurance Assistance Program can also provide free, unbiased help navigating this process, and Senior Medicare Patrol organizations specifically specialize in helping beneficiaries respond to and report exactly this type of fraud — find the free help available in your state.
Finally, understand that reporting matters beyond your individual situation. The scale of this investigation — hundreds of flagged hospices, tens of millions in fraudulent claims tied to a single physician — came to light because patterns were tracked and reported. Every individual report contributes to the broader data that investigators, journalists, and now Congress are using to understand and respond to the scope of the problem.
