In 2022, a state audit of California hospice licensure and oversight found that there were “numerous indicators” that “large-scale hospice fraud” was happening in Los Angeles County. The fix was for the legislature to set up a fraud and abuse task force. Renewed reporting from independent journalist Nick Shirley shows that the fraud is "frauding" at unprecedented levels.
I have my gripes with blue-ribbon commissions and special task forces in the effort to look busy, but according to my MetaCrawler AI source, Perplexity, no commission was ever established to investigate and stop the fraud.
"No dedicated commission was created after the 2022 California State Auditor report on hospice fraud. Oversight continued through the existing Hospice Fraud Task Force ... but no new tracking body emerged," the AI program concluded.
The reason I tell you what AI spit back is that a source it used to draw this conclusion appears to have been redirected to a press release by Gavin Newsom's office so no one would question his complete biffing of this issue. The landing page headline, dated Jan 27, 2026, reads, "In the four years since Governor Newsom’s new hospice provider ban took effect, California has revoked more than 280 licenses."
We don't know what percentage of the universe of fraudsters that is, but consider this: in 2023, L.A. County alone had more than 50% of the nation's fraudulent ghost hospice agencies. L.A. County is where mischief is weaponized. It has been the largest single source of provisional ballots in the country, due to people somehow, inexplicably, I-don't-know-what-happened, finding themselves in L.A. on Election Day to cast a vote for some 80-year-old woman living in Truckee.
The press release complains in a "what you need to know" section that President Donald Trump "is trying to take credit for cracking down on hospice fraud – despite dismantling federal oversight efforts – while California has been preventing and fighting fraud for years, with a moratorium on hospice licensures and ongoing state investigations" [emphasis added for your amusement].
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Me thinks Gavin doth protest too much. But we can understand why he would love to change the subject. He sicced his tweeters on Nick Shirley because the young man has been so effective.
Wait till they find out Shirley's now taking a break from finding fraud in daycare programs to investigate the hospice operators.
You do realize I’m trying to help America eliminate fraud and waste right? No need to try and make me look like the bad guy for exposing fraud.
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) March 17, 2026
People are over it. Start working for the people and not against them.
Shocked, Shirley replied, "You do realize I'm trying to help America eliminate fraud and waste, right? No need to try and make me look like the bad guy for exposing fraud." Good points all.
Shirley didn't get miffed, however. He got busy. He explained the sheer simplicity of how the hospice scam works in L.A. County.
Get a small office in LA-
Collect Medicare beneficiary numbers-
Enroll people into hospice-
Bill the government for millions
Get caught or become suspicious?
Pack up and walk away with millions
END ALL THE FRAUD
This is how the hospice fraud works:
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) March 17, 2026
- Get a small office in LA
- Collect Medicare beneficiary numbers
- Enroll people into hospice
- Bill the government for millions
Get caught or become suspicious?
Pack up and walk away with millions
END ALL THE FRAUD. pic.twitter.com/xbQFCXKH6B
Now, of course, this all may sound familiar to you because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, had already found widespread fraud in L.A. and complained to Newsom about it. Newsom dismissed him out of hand.
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Newsom was about as pleased as this man that Shirley was back to conduct another California wallet biopsy.
🇺🇸Nick Shirley showed up to a California hospice and the guy running it lost his mind.
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 17, 2026
Demanded his name. Started yelling.
Innocent people don't panic when a guy with a camera asks basic questions...pic.twitter.com/KpRJ3FOicz
In fairness, many hospice organizations employ nurses who visit patients in their homes, so there typically aren’t patients at the offices — but the issue is that Nick usually can’t find anyone there at all.
The question isn't just where the people went, either. The question is: where did all those billions go, in a county with more than six times the national average of hospice offices? Although Medicare is federally administered and funds hospice care, the state is responsible for licensing hospices to operate.
It makes you wonder why everybody but Gavin Newsom is concerned about all the waste.
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