Legal InsurrectionShirley’s findings follow CBS News’s serious review of the allegations.
The CBS News analysis reveals that over 700 of the roughly 1,800 hospices in LA County, trigger multiple red flags for fraud as defined by the state.
…Federal inspection records show regulators visited multiple suites in the Van Nuys building between 2021 and 2025 and found deficiencies. Nearly 40 companies in the CBS News analysis, for instance, share key personnel.
State auditors consider the overlap of administrators, medical directors or owners between multiple companies a potential red flag because “it raises questions about whether they are actually participating in the operations of any or all of those agencies.”
CBS News reached out to the 56 hospice offices whose state and federal data indicate they have five or more red flags. Many of the phone numbers were either disconnected or went straight to voicemail. One instructed the caller to text a different number, which turned out to be invalid. At several of the businesses, however, the representatives who answered the phones denied any fraud and told CBS News they run legitimate hospices that serve real patients. They objected to any allegation they are part of the fraud in the hospice industry.
CALIFORNIA HOSPICE FRAUD: There's a stretch in Los Angeles with 500 registered hospice companies within just three miles of each other. And 89 in a single building. But when we visited, we found empty offices, piled-up mail, and phone lines dead.
The actual numbers are staggering.
There are about 1,800 licensed hospice providers in Los Angeles County, which is roughly six times the national average when adjusted for the size of its elderly population, according to CBS News. In 2022, California’s state auditor sounded the alarm as LA County saw a 1,500% increase in hospice companies since 2010.
In a letter to Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators dated March 29, 2022, the California state auditor flagged that there had been “a rapid increase in the number of hospice agencies with no clear correlation to increased need.”
Shirley discovered that two facilities charged $6,000 per person.
Another hospice received $1.3 million. Shirley found the location empty. No employees. No equipment. No furniture.
Welcome to the hospice capital of America…
The problem? They don’t actually exist.
This hospice made a million dollars and fled the scene. Meanwhile, their fellow hospice fraudsters drive luxury cars…
What is the state doing about it? The CBS report goes on to note…very little in the way of meaningful enforcement action.
None of the hospices flagged in the CBS News analysis turned up in California’s enforcement actions database. Since 2022, when the state published its audit report, California’s Department of Public Health has issued enforcement actions against seven hospice facilities statewide — despite the state auditor warning that fraud was rampant.
State attorney general Rob Bonta says his office has brought criminal fraud cases against more than 100 defendants in the hospice industry and about two dozen civil cases. But he acknowledged that more needs to be done.
“We need to be responsive to the red flags and react to them, not just count them,” Bonta said. “Our main lane is the accountability side, the criminal investigations, the civil investigations. That’s after the damage is done though, unfortunately.”
More:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/03/minnesota-was-big-but-california-is-even-bigger-investigations-reveal-massive-hospice-fraud/
