Governor Hair Gel to the nation he hopes to lead: "Who ya going to believe: me or your own lying Oz?

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A network of hundreds of hospices are under investigation for allegedly ripping tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers in Los Angeles Country and across California.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is now actively cutting off payments to suspicious operations across Los Angeles, which is home to almost half of America’s end-of-life care providers.

A hospice industry insider provided the California Post with data detailing hundreds of suspicious hospices and home agencies across the state, including addresses where multiple agencies are listed at the same location.

A Post investigation found the addresses include empty storefronts, an auto parts shop and other offices that are unoccupied, some for years. Others don’t appear to exist at all.

The investigation comes as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz confirmed that “every single hospice in California is now under investigation.”

“Thirty to 40% of all the hospices in America are in Los Angeles, so there’s just no way they are all legitimate,” Dr. Oz said.

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One such center is St. Rita’s Home Health, which is registered to a vacant Van Nuys strip mall.

On the California Department of Public Health database, St. Rita’s is listed as active at the Van Nuys location.

Despite being up for rent, the agency is still listed with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) as active, with data showing it billed Medicare about $4.3 million between 2019 and the first-half of 2025. 

The agency has no website, and when The Post called to confirm it was still at 6360 Van Nuys Blvd., we were told the agency moved to Glendale and were provided a Yahoo email address to send questions. 

About six miles away in North Hollywood, another building is listed as the operating address for 12 hospice and home health agencies — despite a large ”for rent” sign hanging out front.

But in 2023 and 2024, more than $20 million was billed to taxpayers from the building. The Post contacted eight of the providers at the North Hollywood address.

Pluto Home Health Care hung up when asked to confirm its location, Kaplan Hospice Care Inc, went to voicemail before being answered by ”Alexander from Southern California Auto.”

A representative for Confident Home Health claimed they moved to a different location, despite the North Hollywood address being listed on the CDPH database. When asked if the company has a website, the representative replied: “I don’t know — we have an email.”

Queen of The Valley Home Health, which is still listed as active on CDPH’s website, is located in Sun Valley, but when The Post visited the address, there was an auto store. The agency billed nearly $600,000 between 2023 and 2024, according to CMS data.  

The address for Queen of the Valley Home Health is actually the location of an auto parts store. Benjamin Brown for CA Post

The license for Queen of the Valley Home Health is listed as active on CDPH’s website, but the address is the location of an auto parts store.

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Dr. Ira Byock, one of the leading palliative care physicians in the country, told The Post the level of alleged fraud and the speed in which it had grown has ”completely overwhelmed” state and federal authorities tasked with dealing with it.

“There are roughly 7,000 hospice programs across the US. There are 91 in Florida, 39 in New York — and over 2,800 in California,” Dr. Byock said.

“Many of them have come into existence in California in the last four years,” he said, adding that “clearly some of these programs in Southern California are not legitimate at all and seem like vehicles for fraudulent billing [of] Medicare.”

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The 2022 California Hospice and Licensure and Oversight report delivered a scathing review of rampant fraud in home health and hospice care, saying “weak controls have created the opportunity for large-scale fraud and abuse.” 

This is not a new issue: The fraud was investigated and reported on by the LA Times as far back as December 9, 2020, and met with a deafening silence:

And this year on February 22 2026 the LA Times reported on the issue again, this time emphasizing the political nature of the Trump/Oz attack, but conceding this much:

EDD fraud

  • The state’s Employment Development Department, known as EDD, reported in 2021 that approximately $20 billion was lost due to fraud, largely in the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

  • The state itself admitted in 2021 that it failed to take precautions that had been implemented in other states, including using software to identify suspicious applications and cross-checking benefit claims against personal data on state prison inmates.

  • A recent audit also found EDD wasted $4.6 million by paying monthly service fees for more than 6,200 cellphones that went unused for at least four consecutive months between November 2020 and April 2025 — including some devices that were inactive for more than four years.

  • State audits show vulnerabilities persist. The California State Auditor has repeatedly flagged Medi-Cal eligibility discrepancies that have exposed the state to billions of dollars in questionable payments, while also warning that weaknesses in information security across state agencies remain a high-risk issue.

(For the non-readers on FWIW, ere’s a video that recaps Oz’s charges)