CBS News is back with more investigative reporting on California’s extensive hospice fraud scandal. Independent journalist Nick Shirley initiated the coverage by revealing how multiple fraudulent hospice agencies operate from decrepit buildings in unsafe neighborhoods, billing Medicare for millions of dollars.
The scandal has gained so much attention that even mainstream media can no longer overlook it. Fox News recently aired a report on the issue, and just last week, CBS News published its own story as well. This morning, they released a second report focusing on the situation in Los Angeles County.
Patient advocate Sheila Clark, who has worked to expose allegations of widespread Medicare fraud in the hospice industry, calls this building “ground zero” for the issue.
“This particular building I noticed, I’m like, ‘dang, how can there be that many licensed and certified hospices in this tiny little building?,’” Clark said.
The building is among the most extreme cases of what’s known as “clustering” to turn up in a sweeping CBS News investigation — a grouping of large numbers of hospice offices that state auditors consider a major red flag for potential fraud.
The Van Nuys address for Merabi Plaza appears dozens of times in state records for licensed hospice companies. Inside the building’s entry hall, a directory lists numerous hospice agencies that line the long tiled hallways, although the building’s owner claims many are no longer there.
Clark said it makes “no sense” to find so many licensed and certified hospice company offices operating inside a single building. Auditors said the clustering of so many firms raised concerns because it suggests that “the number of agencies in these areas likely exceeds the number of patients who need services.”
Concerns about clustering appear in a 2022 California State Auditor’s report, which found that Los Angeles County had experienced a 1,500% increase in hospice companies countywide since 2010. That’s six times more hospice providers than the national average, relative to the county’s elderly population.
Instead of addressing these claims or stopping the fraud, Gavin Newsom’s team is attacking Nick Shirley and CBS News for revealing how pathetically bad he truly is as a governor and how he has ruined the state of California.
That’s sarcasm for sure, but it’s also how the left is looking at this exposure.
No doubt new right-leaning CBS News boss Bari Weiss had something to do with this investigative report, but without a doubt, it was Nick Shirley who blew the California fraud story wide open – after he blew the fraud in Tim Walz’s Minneapolis wide open.
This writer has also been pondering this issue. Hospice patients can obtain pain medications, as well as anxiety medications like lorazepam (the generic name for Ativan) and haloperidol (Haldol). It wouldn’t be surprising if there were a drug trafficking aspect to this fraud as well.
Clearly, it’s time for a lot of arrests, and since they won’t come from Newsom, Pam Bondi will have to step up and get it done. It’d be a shame if her DOJ investigators found Newsom to be somehow criminally liable too, wouldn’t it?