455 people including doctors charged in historic $6.5B health care schemes

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More than 450 people, including doctors and nurse practitioners across 45 states, have been charged in connection with global health care fraud schemes totaling a record $6.5 billion, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.The federal agency, in a news release on Tuesday, June 23, wrote the alleged fraud and opioid abuse schemes involved 455 people who submitted false claims to Medicare, Medicaid and other health care programs and "caused significant patient harm, including death."Of the group charged in the schemes, prosecutors said at least 90 were doctors and other licensed medical professionals.In all, 56 federal districts and 50 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units participated in the investigation, the release continues."This year’s National Health Care Fraud Takedown represents the greatest whole-of-government effort to combat health care fraud in our Nation’s history," U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the release."While today’s announcement is one of the largest on record – every arrest is a continued message to criminal actors who rob American taxpayers that you will not get away with your crimes," FBI Director Kash Patel said in the release.Luxury cars, a funeral home and a hotel in the PhilippinesSince June 8, hundreds of defendants have been arrested in connection to the schemes, in what the Justice Department is calling the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown.In one case in Arizona, Blanche said a corporate executive allegedly took $1 billion in taxpayer funds after billing wound grafts, charging more than $1 million per patient. The money was later allegedly used to buy million-dollar homes, luxury cars and even build a hotel in the Philippines, Blanche said.In another case in Virginia, Blanche said the co-owner of a mental health company was charged with a $49 million Medicaid fraud scheme that targeted the homeless "by offering them illegal bribes in the form of hotel stays in exchange for using their Medicaid numbers to bill for crisis stabilization services that they did not need or receive."In California, charges were brought against a hospice owner and two other defendants for a $27.7 million Medicare fraud scheme in which the hospice owner allegedly tried to avoid detection through a plot to purchase information of deceased people from a funeral home employee.The hospice owner, prosecutors said, fraudulently enrolled patients who were not terminally ill and allegedly paid illegal kickbacks of up to $3,000 per person to a funeral home employee in exchange for dead Medicare beneficiaries’ information. The owner then allegedly billed Medicare for several days of hospice services for the deceased people who had not received hospice care "and created fake, back-dated medical records," prosecutors said, claiming the beneficiaries had been seen by a doctor."Prosecuting criminals who steal from American patients is necessary − but stopping them before a single dollar leaves the building is smarter," Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in the release. "CMS is done playing catch-up. We’re deploying advanced data analytics to expose fraud networks, freeze suspicious payments, and shut down bad actors before they can do damage to the programs that millions of Americans depend on."Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.