Oz Fraud Film, NYC Raids Put Medicaid Safeguards in Focus

More than 80 adult day care providers in New York City received warning letters from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services over questionable billing. On Tuesday, Oct. 20, federal agents showed up at some of their doors. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, the FBI, the NYPD and other agencies delivered letters and searched social adult day care centers across the city as part of a federal Medicaid-fraud investigation. The raids took place one day before the scheduled release of “War on Fraud,” a 27-minute documentary starring Oz. It’s set to debut Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET on his X account.

Fox News Digital said it obtained the film first. It follows Oz across the country as he highlights alleged schemes targeting taxpayer-funded health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and hospice care. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Deputy Administrator Kim Brandt also appear.

What Investigators Say They Found

Oz pointed to alleged irregularities at the New York centers: low attendance despite high Medicaid billing, questionable wheelchair-transportation charges, seniors entering without signing in, inconsistent attendance claims, and sign-in sheets with future-dated entries. An FBI spokesperson said agents were working across Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn and other locations “in connection with ongoing federal investigations.” The HHS Office of Inspector General also took part in the probe.

In one segment, Oz describes a group of businesses in Flushing, Queens, including a social adult day care center, a pharmacy and a medical center, as a “clubhouse for crooks.” He alleged that they took seniors’ identification numbers and used them to submit fraudulent bills. “All these programs come back to one basic issue: Fraudsters and criminals don’t give a s--- about you,” Oz says in the video. “They want your money, and they will walk all over your health, sacrifice your life and betray society’s trust to get your hard-earned money.”

Patients Caught in the Middle

The human stakes appear most starkly in the hospice allegations. Oz cited roughly 2,000 hospice providers in the Los Angeles area, a concentration he said raised concerns about fraudulent billing. He alleged that Russian organized-crime groups took part in some suspected operations and that patients enrolled under false pretenses, sometimes after operators falsely declared them terminally ill. That, he said, could limit their access to treatment while operators billed Medicare.

Seniors aren’t just the backdrop to these cases. They’re the raw material. Their ID numbers allegedly fueled the billing, and their care allegedly suffered.

The film also covers an alleged $3.7 billion Medicare-fraud scheme involving medical-equipment companies in Delray Beach, Florida. Federal prosecutors allege the companies billed for equipment patients hadn’t requested or needed. The alleged ringleader fled the country, Turkish authorities captured him, and he returned to South Florida to face federal charges.

A Broader Crackdown

Minnesota has become a focus of the administration’s wider benefits-fraud push. Oz said the state’s $250 million “Feeding Our Future” scandal intensified attention on large-scale fraud. The case came to national attention in 2022 and has since led to a wave of federal convictions. The White House Task Force on Fraud, led by Vice President JD Vance, has joined Oz in publicizing alleged schemes as the administration expands its crackdown on corruption in taxpayer-funded programs.

A separate case unveiled Wednesday in Boston shows the same enforcement theme reaching beyond health care. Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney for the Massachusetts District, said Jennifer Gonzalez, 43, allegedly arranged sham marriages for immigrants seeking legal status, collecting up to $40,000 per marriage and arranging as many as 20 a year over the last decade. “This conspiracy netted her $6 million during the course of the alleged scam,” Foley said at the Moakley Federal Courthouse.

Prosecutors described Gonzalez as the ringleader. Her 31-year-old secretary, Amara Pugh; Jessica Tavares, 31; Erica Daniels, 29; and Jaylin Hill, 26, were allegedly paid to marry clients. Authorities arrested Gonzalez, Pugh, Tavares and two other alleged conspirators Wednesday morning; Hill was already in state prison for a gun offense. Foley said Gonzalez also applied for and received more than $124,000 in SNAP benefits from 2019 through 2026, allegedly failing to report income from the scheme or list other household members. The Justice Department described the case as an allegation.

Why This Matters: Medicare and Medicaid exist so older Americans and low-income families can get care they couldn’t otherwise afford. When fraudsters siphon billions from those programs, patients take the first hit and taxpayers the second. The hospice allegations, if proven, describe people denied treatment so someone else could bill for it. That’s the strongest argument for well-funded, professionally staffed oversight, including inspectors general, data analysts and prosecutors. It also raises a fair question for policymakers: will enforcement stay targeted at organized schemes, or will it sweep in legitimate providers and the vulnerable seniors who depend on them? Most of these cases remain allegations, and due process still applies. Protecting these programs means catching criminals while keeping care intact for the people they were built to serve.