• What Happened: Investigators visited Topanga Hospice Care Inc. in Los Angeles County and found an abandoned office with one chair, no staff, and a phone number that rings busy. According to public records reviewed in the investigation, the company billed Medicare an estimated $3.4 million over two years.
  • Why It Matters: CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz confirmed 900 to 1,000 fraudulent hospices are operating in LA County alone, representing an estimated $3.5 billion in Medicare fraud. Congress launched a formal investigation. Every single hospice in California is now under investigation.
  • Bottom Line: One chair. No patients. $3.4 million billed to taxpayers. California is the fraud capital of the world.

An independent journalist known on social media as "Inner Rhythm Media" walked into the registered office of Topanga Hospice Care Inc. in Los Angeles County recently and found exactly one chair.

No staff. No patients. No equipment. No sign that any human being had received end-of-life care in that building at any point in recent memory. The phone number listed for the business rang busy. The office was abandoned. The Medicare bills, however, were very much active.

According to public records reviewed in the investigation, Topanga Hospice Care Inc. billed Medicare an estimated $3.4 million over approximately two years, despite every physical indicator suggesting the company exists on paper only.

It is not an isolated case. It is Tuesday in Los Angeles.

@innerrhythmmedia Reliable nursing agency ? Let’s cheeeck it ooutt 🤙🏽 @Amy Reichert @I Meme Therefore I am @Benny Johnson @Spencer Pratt ♬ Membrane shaking - yasuhiro soda

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz confirmed that federal investigators have identified between 900 and 1,000 fraudulent hospices operating in LA County alone, representing an estimated $3.5 billion in Medicare fraud. Eighteen percent of all hospice billing in the entire United States comes from this single county. The average hospice in LA County bills Medicare roughly $29,000 per patient, more than double the national average of $13,200.

CBS News conducted a sweeping investigation of every hospice operating in LA County and found that over 700 of the roughly 1,800 registered hospices triggered multiple red flags for fraud as defined by the state. The network found 89 hospice companies registered to a single three-story office building in Van Nuys. Another building in North Hollywood houses 12 different hospice and home health agencies despite a large "for rent" sign out front. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, more than $20 million was billed to taxpayers from that single North Hollywood building. One agency called St. Rita's Home Health billed Medicare $4.3 million from a vacant strip mall.

The scam works by enrolling Medicare beneficiaries in hospice care without their knowledge, billing for services never rendered, and in some cases recruiting seniors off the street to hand over their Medicare numbers. In one documented case, a 69-year-old woman seeking physical therapy after a pickleball injury was denied care because fraudsters had already used her Medicare information to bill for hospice services she never received and never knew about.

Los Angeles County has seen a 1,500 percent increase in hospice providers since 2010. The county now has more hospice providers than 36 entire states combined, and 33 times more than the state of Florida. The California State Auditor flagged hospice providers as overbilling Medicare by at least $105 million in a single year.

The House Oversight Committee launched a formal investigation in March, sending a letter to Governor Newsom demanding documents and communications related to the state's oversight of hospice programs. The letter, signed by Chairman James Comer and two dozen Republican members of Congress, cited "a well-documented history of fraud" and gave Newsom a deadline of April 6 to respond.

Dr. Oz made the stakes plain at a recent press conference alongside the Department of Justice. "Money is being sucked out of the system by these fraudsters. But these fraudsters are calling people who aren't going to die."

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli added: "No one is making sure the money is actually being used where it's intended to be used. The scale is almost beyond even our imagination."

One chair. No phone. No patients. $3.4 million billed.

Multiply that by a thousand and you have California's hospice industry. Multiply it by the entire state's fraud apparatus and you begin to understand why Steve Hilton estimates $434 billion has been stolen from California taxpayers. The ghost hospices are just one room in a very large haunted house.