The biggest Medicare fraud sweep yet

On June 23, 2026, the Justice Department announced the largest health care fraud action in its history: 455 people charged, including 90 doctors and other licensed professionals, in schemes involving more than $6.5 billion in false claims to Medicare and Medicaid. Alongside the criminal charges, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services suspended 1,079 providers and revoked the billing privileges of 1,403 more. The schemes read like a catalog of how Medicare money gets stolen. One group billed Medicare more than $4 billion for skin grafts used on wounds, marking up the product as much as 2,000 percent and, prosecutors allege, applying them to hospice patients who did not need them. Another involved $3.7 billion in claims for urinary catheters and other equipment that was never sent. A separate telemedicine scheme ran to $1.2 billion. In one case, a hospice owner allegedly bought the names of recently deceased people from a funeral home employee so he could bill Medicare for care that was never given. Here is why this matters to an ordinary Medicare member, beyond the headline numbers. Fraud is not a victimless accounting problem; it shows up in your premium. The Justice Department noted that the skin-graft billing alone grew so fast that, had CMS not stepped in and realigned the payment, the resulting Part B premium increase would have cost every Medicare beneficiary in the country about $11 more a month. That is the quiet tax of fraud: money stolen from the program is money the program eventually collects back from everyone. The practical, calm takeaway is the part you can act on. Most of these schemes start by getting hold of a real Medicare number. Medicare will not call you out of the blue to offer free braces, free genetic tests, or free equipment, and a stranger offering something free in exchange for your Medicare number is the warning sign. Guard the number the way you would guard a credit card, read the summary notices Medicare sends you for charges you do not recognize, and if something looks wrong you can report it to 1-800-MEDICARE or at Medicare.gov/fraud.