18% of entire US home health care billed to federal gov comes from Los Angeles County: Mehmet Oz

Fraud in the Los Angeles area related to home healthcare services and hospice has reached the billions of dollars, as it has been revealed that 18 percent of all home healthcare billing has been coming out of Los Angeles County in California, according to Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Mehmet Oz

From ghost patients to shell companies, Oz said, "Hospice is crazy" in LA. "You've got hospice that's grown seven-fold in the last five years. They represent about three and a half billion dollars of fraud, we believe, just in LA County," he added.

"Eighteen percent of the whole country's home health care billing is coming out of Los Angeles County," Oz said. "How is that possible?" One commercial building in the San Fernando Valley was found to be the address for 112 hospice agencies. When Fox News went to the building, not a single person was found.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said last year, "Hospice fraud has become an epidemic in California, specifically in the greater Los Angeles area." Bonta added in a press release in August that there has been a concentration of fraud in LA, with "a large concentration of hospice companies located in Van Nuys, Glendale, Burbank, and North Hollywood. This has become an alarming problem that goes against everything hospice care is meant to be — it can seriously harm patients and cost taxpayers through false billings to Medi-Cal."

LA County is home to 1,923 hospice providers, which is more than 36 states combined. How it works is that recruiters go to populated areas such as shopping centers, and they promise people rewards such as walkers and nutritional drinks as well as weekly visits if they give their Medicare number, per sources that spoke to Fox News.

That number is then sold to a provider for $1,000 to $3,000 and the recruiter gets a cut for every month the senior is on their hospice rolls. Those on hospice are supposed to have terminal illnesses with 6 months or less of life expectancy. But hospice owners participating in the fraud pass the seniors around as patients to not raise flags to auditors.

The seniors are recruited whether they are sick or not, but do not find out they are getting scammed until they seek out other medical care.

In the US, over 50 percent of those on hospice usually die within 18 days, but in LA, that average is around three months. In LA, hospice providers are also given $260 a day for each senior under their care. In LA, Oz said that the fraud has been able to take root because of the efforts of Russian and Armenian gangs.

"These are Russian, Armenian gangs, mafia that are leading a lot of these efforts, we believe, have been able to corrupt, and work with doctors who are willing to lie," Oz said.

One hospice owner in LA told reporters, "As a hospice owner, I could sign up everybody in this room for hospice.” There is also no limit on the number of hospice centers people can own, and applicants can live abroad.

"It's all just paperwork. I could fill [an application] out in Kazakhstan if I want, and get a hospice license,” a whistleblower said.