US health secretary says administration cracking down on health care fraud

WASHINGTON

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday that the Trump administration is intensifying efforts to combat health care fraud and claw back billions of dollars in misused public funds.

“We are attacking fraud,” Kennedy said during a Cabinet meeting, pointing to “hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid, Medicare fraud in states like Minnesota and California,” adding that the government is “clawing back that money.”

Kennedy said major progress has been made on prior authorization. “Now we have 80% of the insurance has agreed to eliminate prior authorization and almost all of their procedures.”

The remarks came after Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), said California has recorded $3.5 billion in medical fraud, attributing much of the increase to foreign criminal networks, particularly Russians or Armenians linked to the mafia or criminal gangs.

“L.A. County has become an epicenter for health care fraud in America,” Oz said Tuesday on US social media company X. “Criminals have corrupted the system so much that fraud is now almost expected.

He pointed out the rising number of care facilities in Los Angeles, suggesting that fraud may be driving the rapid growth.