California Attorney Rob Bonta appears to finally be honing in on fraud after federal pressure — digging up more than a quarter of a billion dollars in faulty services billed to MediCal and Medicaid.
The top state prosecutor says investigators caught 14 fraudulent hospice companies who had billed MediCal and Medicaid for $267 million in non-existent services after they received a tip from the California Department of Healthcare Services.
“This was a brazen, calculated criminal scheme that exploited the medical system, stole from the state of California and Medicaid and prevented services and care from going to sick individuals who actually need it,” Bonta said of the crime.
Bonta’s office filed felony criminal charges against 21 suspects for the healthcare fraud crimes.
He insisted, as the state faces extensive criticism for the alleged widespread healthcare fraud, that his office alone worked on the case. Bonta also noted that they were looking into fraud “before certain people in this country decided to think about it for the first time.”
“This is just the latest example of the California DOJ’s long standing ongoing and successful efforts [against] hospice and MediCal fraud. We have been doing this work for years. We’ve been doing it successfully before certain people in this country decided to think about it for the first time,” he said
“I also want to make clear: This is our case, a California case, from beginning to end, my office worked on it.”
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli blasted Bonta earlier for the alleged widespread fraud in California.
“It’s the federal government cleaning up after you and the Governor’s incompetence. Maybe you should spend more time prosecuting your own fraudsters and filling up your prisons, and less time cooking up political lawsuits against the Trump Administration,” he wrote on X.