Licenses for hundreds of suspicious hospice agencies in Los Angeles were suspended by the anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, just weeks after The California Post exposed a network of physicians appearing to drive tens of millions in questionable billing.
447 hospice facilities and 23 home health agencies suspected of fraud in the LA area had their license suspended, according to Fox News Digital, representing roughly $600 million in fraudulent spending.
It’s not clear if the number of suspended agencies is in addition to the 221 hospice providers that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said were suspended back on April 2.
“To all fraudsters: good luck trying to hide from the Vice President’s task force,” a White House official told the outlet. “[The anti-fraud task force is] reviewing and pursuing every possible lead. These suspension numbers, and the dollar values saved, are only going to increase.”
For months, The Post has investigated potentially fraudulent hospices facilities in LA, from addresses that include empty storefronts to an auto parts shop and locations that are unoccupied — others don’t appear to exist at all.
The Post’s reporting resulted in Dr. Oz declaring “every single hospice in California is now under investigation.”
“CMS has gone from a ‘pay and chase’ system of dealing with fraud to a ‘stop and clot,’” he said during an interview with The Post back on March 1, adding that Medicare payments were actively being “cut off” from suspicious clinics.
An investigation into the doctors behind the billing revealed even more troubling signs of fraudulent activity, as physicians appear to siphon millions from the country’s most vulnerable population.
One California doctor, who is a registered dermatologist, charged Medicare $35 million in questionable billing last year.
Dr. Fariba Javaherian is a registered dermatologist, but according to CMS billing data obtained by The Post, she is associated with 63 hospice facilities across California either as a medical director, attending physician or in some other capacity.
Javaherian’s The National Provider Identifier (NPI) — a unique 10 digit number given to individual healthcare providers — was used for 1,662 unique patients across the 63 hospice agencies and appeared on more than 6,000 claims that billed $35,816,331, according to the data.
Between Jan. 1, 2018 and Sept. 30, 2025, Javaherian’s NPI was used for more than 31,000 claims at 130 different hospice agencies, totaling more than $173 million.
As a result of The Post’s investigation, CMS revoked Javaherian’s license to bill Medicare and at least 16 hospice agencies associated with the dermatologist have been suspended.
“As you raised her profile and we started looking into more details at her numbers, it’s hundreds of millions of dollars over several years that she was able to bilk from the American people,” Dr. Oz told the Post following an FBI raid of two hospice operators accused of fraud.
Javaherian is not accused of any wrongdoing, however, during a press conference alongside First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli on April 2, Dr. Oz announced federal officials are now looking into the dermatologist, as well as many others thought to be stealing from taxpayers.
A health care insider source told The Post the greater LA area accounts for roughly $3.5 billion in home health and hospice fraud each year.
