3 major tactics used by hospice scammers

3 major tactics used by hospice scammers 
Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 4/18/25 
Among the numerous tactics that unscrupulous hospices use to commit fraud, three are rising to the forefront. Four states have garnered national attention as fraud hotbeds — Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas. These regions have seen swarms of new hospices emerging and receiving Medicare dollars. Numerous reports of unethical or illegal practices have surfaced, particularly among these new companies. ... One common practice among them is to keep their patient census low to avoid regulators’ attention, Judi Lund Person, principal of the consulting firm Lund Person and Associates, said at the Hospice News ELEVATE conference ... Among these providers, three principal tactics are emerging, according to Sheila Clark, president and CEO of the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association. ...

• When it comes to identify theft, fraudulent hospices obtain patients’ information and enroll them in hospice without their knowledge or consent. ... Most of these patients are not terminally ill. ...
• In poor care/no care scenarios, scammers enroll patients in hospice and subsequently do not provide the necessary or required services ...
• In cases of uninformed consent, patients are often deceived into enrolling in the hospice benefit without understanding what that means for them, including those who are not terminally ill.