The report from the Trump Administration is old news but the prosecutions below are not. 7/8/26 Fox News:
FIRST ON FOX: The Trump administration revealed new figures that show a drastic 7,100% spike in Medicare claims for skin substitutes in just six years as the task force led by Vice President JD Vance continues to crack down on fraud across the country.
The staggering increase in claims occurred between 2019 and 2025, surging from $200 million to $14.4 billion, prompting the anti-fraud task force and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to identify potentially fraudulent claims and deny 96% of claims made since March.
The CMS, which is led by Administrator Mehmet Oz, identified 4,200 suspicious claims for skin substitutes, known as allografts, totaling $224 million in charges through May of this year.
"That's a lot of money," Oz said during a press conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday. "And that bankrupts not just hospital systems and physician groups, but it causes major problems across the entire landscape."
The agency also found alleged fraudulent claims for Durable Medical Equipment (DME), which includes wheelchairs, walkers, hospital beds and other essential equipment. The agency says that payments have been suspended to 102 suppliers and revoked billing privileges for an additional 725 suppliers.
"In just six months, the task force has effectively wiped out Durable Medical Equipment fraud in America," a spokesperson for Vance’s office told Fox News Digital. "After the vice president and Dr. Oz announced a moratorium on new DME companies, paired with aggressive enforcement actions by DOJ and HHS, this kind of fraud has effectively ended."
The suppliers who were suspected of fraud and had payments suspended represented 8.6% of all Medicare-funded Durable Medical Equipment in 2025.
That is not a small problem: 8.6%. So where are the prosecutions? 7/1/26 Las Vegas channel 3:
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — A Las Vegas nurse practitioner has been indicted in federal court in Houston, accused of ordering unnecessary skin grafts for hospice patients who were already close to death.
Prosecutors allege the procedures were performed on patients who did not need them and that some of those patients died within days of the grafts. Authorities also allege $297 million in payouts tied to the scheme went toward luxury purchases and projects, including a Ferrari, an $865,000 necklace and a resort under construction in the Philippines.
If a patient is a few days from death, this makes even less sense than unneeded grafts for those who are going to live.
Federal prosecutors seized more than $2 million from a Pasadena wound-care clinic bank account “suspected of scamming millions of dollars from Medicare” through reimbursements for skin grafts that patients allegedly never received, federal officials announced Tuesday.
Working with Department of Homeland Security Investigations, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli revealed that Expert Wound Care, which does business as St. Victoria Home Health Care, is the target of a federal inquiry. The Pasadena-based clinic is accused of fraud, according to a seizure warrant affidavit that federal prosecutors filed Monday and that a federal magistrate in Los Angeles approved.
The clinic received more than $34 million in federal payouts, with claims involving a single patient totaling more than $6 million, according to a U.S. Secret Service agent affidavit in the investigation. Expert Wound Care and its principals could be immediately reached for comment on Tuesday.
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