Over a two-week period, a state and federal initiative has charged 455 fraudsters who were involved in schemes totalling $6.5 billion in alleged false claims, according to the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ). About 90 physicians and other licensed medical professionals face charges.
States such as California, Arizona and Nevada are among the regions facing hospice program integrity concerns in recent years. State and federal agencies have increasingly collaborated to recently uncover fraud schemes allegedly involving hundreds of malfeasant operators defrauding Medicare of billions of dollars.
The Justice Department launched a state and federal partnership to combat healthcare and other types of fraud. The 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown includes collaborative fraud detection and enforcement efforts among 56 federal districts and 45 states and United States territories. The Takedown initiative has thus far resulted in the identification of billions of fraudulently spent Medicare dollars, the DOJ recently reported.
“We are aggressively scaling our offensive against anyone using health care as a front to steal from the American people,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. “There is no case too big, no scheme too complex, and no hiding place too remote for our relentless fraud-fighting team. Our message is simple: if you put profit over patients, you should expect to be put in prison.”
Hospice fraud crackdown
One of the cases cited in the DOJ’s Takedown report centered around a hospice kickback scheme in Arizona to the tune of $4 billion. Among the 11 accused individuals are eight medical professionals and one company executive. The scheme targeted hospice patients across six regional districts who did not receive or have a medical necessity for the billed wound care treatments.
The recent crackdown also included hospice fraud charges recently brought against an owner and two marketers of a California-based company. The individuals allegedly falsely billed $27.7 million in a scheme that involved fraudulent hospice enrollment of patients who were not terminally ill. The hospice owner is accused of evading regulatory detection through falsified medical records and clinical documentation. The owner also allegedly paid kickbacks to a funeral home employee in exchange for individuals’ Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) numbers, according to the DOJ report.
“Today’s charges reflect the department’s intention to prosecute both the architects of fraud and those who betray their oath to carry out the scheme,” DOJ indicated in a statement.
The Justice Department’s Takedown initiative included the use of data analytics to narrow regulatory focus toward the “worst actors,” the agency stated. The initiative resulted in the seizure of more than $182 million in fraudulently billed Medicare dollars spent on luxury vehicles, houses, watches, life insurance policies, jewelry and other assets.
The Takedown is intended to enforce “full-spectrum accountability for all criminal actors,” according to the DOJ.
The Justice Department’s report cited health care fraud cases under investigation in Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, New York, Texas and Virginia. Some of the schemes involved international cooperation to identify alleged fraudsters operating in the United States from Cyprus, Estonia and the Philippines.
Several state and local law enforcement agencies participated in the initiative. Federal agencies involved included the FBI, IRS, U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Veterans Affairs, United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), among others.
New fraud case emerges in a hot bed state
Alongside the DOJ’s coordinated fraud takedown has come increased state regulatory enforcement actions in certain regions, including in Nevada and Texas.
Most recently, prosecutors brought charges against Marizel Yukee, a Las Vegas-based nurse practitioner in the U.S. Southern District Court of Texas’s Houston Division. From roughly October 2023 to about April 2026, Yukee allegedly paid $906 million in fraud Medicare funds as kickbacks and bribes to other health care providers in exchange for patient referrals for wound care services.
The wound care treatments were allegedly applied to terminally ill patients who in some cases did not have a medical need. Other patients had infected wounds and died within days of the wound treatment application.
Yukee, and her co-conspirators, face criminal charges for their alleged involvement. She is accused of spending the fraudulent dollars on a “lavish lifestyle,” purchasing high-end vehicles such as a Ferrari, jewelry and real estate property in Hawaii, according to court documents. Yukee also allegedly used Medicare funds to pay approximately $4.6 million to build a beach resort in the Philippines.
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