Oren David Shachar, an Israeli citizen in Los Angeles, ran four hospice firms that billed Medicare for patients who were not terminally ill or who were already dead in a nationwide fraud takedown involving over $6.5 billion in false claims
Ynet News
An Israeli citizen living in California has been arrested and charged in a $27 million Medicare fraud case, after federal prosecutors said he ran hospice companies that billed the U.S. government for patients who were not terminally ill, and in some cases, for people who were already dead.
The defendant, Oren David Shachar, 59, of Van Nuys in Los Angeles, is accused of operating at least four hospice care companies: Gentle Touch Hospice Care Inc. in Valley Glen, Oxford Hospice Care Inc. in Montclair, Art of Hospice Inc. in Encino and Holly Trinity Hospice in Glendale.
Hospice care is meant for terminally ill patients, usually when treatment is no longer intended to cure the disease but to ease suffering and improve quality of life at the end of life. Medicare is the U.S. government health insurance program mainly serving people over 65 and some younger people with disabilities.
According to a 16-count federal indictment unsealed in Los Angeles, Shachar conspired with marketers and submitted false claims for hospice services that were medically unnecessary because the patients were not terminally ill, or were never provided because the patients had already died.
Prosecutors say proceeds from the alleged fraud helped fund a lavish lifestyle, including the purchase of a Rolls-Royce Phantom worth about half a million dollars.
One of the central allegations in the indictment is that Shachar used personal information belonging to dead people.
The indictment says Shachar submitted fraudulent Medicare claims from February 2021 to March 2026 through the hospice companies he owned and operated. Prosecutors said the claims were not payable because the services were medically unnecessary, were not provided or were tied to illegal kickbacks paid to marketers and beneficiaries.
In living-patient cases, prosecutors said that Shachar paid beneficiaries to remain enrolled in his hospices, even when they were not eligible for hospice care. The payments were part of a system meant to keep patients inside the companies long enough to continue billing Medicare.
If convicted of all charges, Shachar faces decades in federal prison.
Shachar’s case was part of a broader Justice Department health care fraud takedown, but federal officials in Los Angeles singled out the alleged hospice scheme as one of the major local cases.
The case also places an Israeli citizen at the center of one of the Los Angeles-area cases in a nationwide U.S. crackdown that officials described as the largest coordinated health care fraud enforcement action in American history.