Dr Oz's 'War on Fraud' Film Lifts the Lid on Medicare Scams as New York Crackdown Warns More Than 80 Providers
Dr Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has released a new documentary on how fraudsters siphon vast sums out of America's taxpayer-funded health programmes. The 27-minute film is titled 'War on Fraud'.
In the documentary, Oz travels across the United States spotlighting alleged fraud schemes involving Medicare, Medicaid and hospice care, and details the administration's efforts to crack down on those responsible. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Deputy Administrator Kim Brandt also appear in the film.
In the video, Oz says all these programmes come back to one basic issue: fraudsters and criminals do not care about patients — they want the money, and to get it they will walk all over people's health, sacrifice lives and betray society's trust.
The film's release has been paired with enforcement on the ground. On Tuesday (20 October), Oz joined the FBI, the HHS Office of Inspector General, the NYPD and other agencies in surprise visits to social adult day care centres in New York City, personally confronting workers at centres suspected of questionable Medicaid billing. More than 80 New York City providers received warning letters from CMS over questionable billing practices as part of the operation.
An FBI New York spokesperson said the bureau, along with multiple other law enforcement agencies, was conducting activity in Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn and other locations around New York City in connection with ongoing federal investigations.
Oz flagged a series of alleged irregularities, including low attendance despite high Medicaid billing, questionable wheelchair transportation charges, seniors entering without signing in, inconsistent attendance claims and sign-in sheets containing future-dated entries.
A major segment of the film focuses on hospice care. Oz points to the Los Angeles area, where he says roughly 2,000 hospice providers operate — a concentration he argues has raised serious concerns about fraudulent billing. Some 800 hospice providers in California have reportedly been suspended over an alleged $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme.
Oz further alleges that Russian organised crime groups are involved in some suspected hospice fraud operations. According to his account, unsuspecting patients are falsely declared terminally ill and misled into enrolling in hospice care. That allows fraudulent operators to bill Medicare under false pretences, while patients labelled terminal may find their access to treatment for those conditions limited.
Minnesota has become a major focus of the administration's broader crackdown on benefits fraud. Oz said the state's $250 million 'Feeding Our Future' scandal, which erupted into the national spotlight in 2022 and has since produced a wave of federal convictions, helped intensify the administration's focus on large-scale fraud.
The White House Task Force on Fraud, led by Vice President JD Vance, has joined the campaign, and some $1.4 billion has reportedly been cut off from home health and hospice providers suspected of fraud. Amid a historic healthcare takedown of about $6.5 billion, the FBI has also added two fugitives to its 'most wanted fraudsters' list.
The documentary highlights one of the largest alleged Medicare fraud schemes in US history: $3.7 billion in fraudulent billing claims tied to medical equipment companies operating in Delray Beach, Florida, according to federal prosecutors. The scheme allegedly involved billing for equipment patients never requested or needed. The accused ringleader fled the United States but was captured in Turkey and returned to South Florida to face federal charges.
In an earlier visit to Flushing, Queens, Oz described a cluster of businesses — a social adult day care centre, a pharmacy and a medical centre — as a 'clubhouse for crooks', alleging they recruit seniors, game the system and use their ID numbers to bill the programmes, which ultimately means billing the taxpayer.
The documentary was set for release on Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET on Oz's X account. Film and enforcement drive together, the message is clear: the administration intends to keep healthcare fraud at the centre of its anti-corruption campaign — and how lasting the results prove will depend on the pace of investigations and prosecutions.
