Attorney General said Thursday that felony charges were filed against 103 individual IHSS providers for allegedly defrauding the Medi‑Cal program of more than $4.5 million.
The Department of Justice said the cases came from a coordinated, years‑long effort with the Department of Health Care Services; investigators used data analytics and claims review to develop leads and pursue referrals. The DOJ said the alleged schemes involved providers claiming hours for care while the member was admitted to an acute care hospital or a skilled nursing facility paid for by Medi‑Cal.
The DOJ said the defendants provided services to members who lived in counties including Butte, Contra Costa, Fresno, Kern, Lake, Los Angeles, Napa, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and Tulare.
The DOJ said California’s IHSS program serves more than 900,000 seniors and people with disabilities and has a roughly $30 billion budget; the office called the alleged losses a small fraction of that total and said the enforcement demonstrates systems to hold bad actors accountable. The DOJ also noted that home‑based IHSS care reduces public spending by about $100,000 per person annually compared with nursing facility care.
The DOJ provided reporting options for suspected IHSS fraud; the office said people may submit a complaint online at https://oag.ca.gov/dmfea/reporting, call the Division of Medi‑Cal Fraud & Elder Abuse complaint line toll‑free at (800) 722-0432, or mail a written complaint to the division’s P.O. Box in Sacramento.
The DOJ summarized recent related actions by its Division of Medi‑Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse; the office said it secured a guilty plea in a case that involved more than $400,000 in losses, joined the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown that named 455 defendants nationwide with over $6.5 billion in intended losses, filed charges in a $267 million hospice fraud dismantling, and pursued other hospice and prescription‑diversion cases. The DOJ said the division receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a federal grant and 25 percent from the State of California for federal fiscal year 2027.
A DOJ release noted that criminal indictments are allegations and said every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
State
Rob Bonta
Attorney General · Democrat
Named 3 times in this story.
Portrait: Official portrait
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