California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed charges against 21 suspects in connection with an alleged hospice fraud scheme that defrauded the state of $267 million, according to state officials.

The arrests follow an investigation into widespread hospice fraud in the Los Angeles area. According to CBS News reporting that helped expose the scheme, one California doctor was connected to nearly 2,800 Medicare patient claims across 126 different hospices during 2024.

The scale of the alleged fraud highlights ongoing concerns about abuse within the hospice care system, where Medicare payments are made to provide end-of-life care for terminally ill patients. Hospice fraud typically involves billing for patients who are not actually terminally ill or for services that were never provided.

Federal health officials have previously identified hospice billing as an area of particular concern for Medicare fraud, as the program has experienced rapid growth in recent years. The arrests represent one of the larger hospice fraud cases prosecuted by California authorities.

The investigation that led to the charges was prompted in part by CBS News reporting that examined suspicious billing patterns in Los Angeles-area hospices. Details about the specific charges against individual defendants and the timeline of the alleged fraud have not been fully disclosed by prosecutors.