HHS watchdog reports $5.56 billion in savings, recoveries amid trump admin’s healthcare fraud crackdown

Ireland Owens, DCNF

The Department of Health and Human Services’ federal watchdog announced Friday in its semiannual report to Congress that it recently generated billions in projected recoveries and cost savings amid the Trump administration’s ongoing healthcare fraud crackdown.

HHS‘ Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in its newly released report that it generated a total “monetary impact” of $5.56 billion and also excluded 1,212 individuals and entities from participating in federal health programs during the 6-month period ending on March 31.

“During this period, OIG remained at the forefront of efforts to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in HHS programs,” Inspector General Thomas March Bell said in a statement.

“Federal programs are designed to serve the people who rely on them most, including seniors, people with disabilities, low-income families, and individuals struggling with addiction,” Bell continued. “Fraudsters put these lifelines at risk by stealing taxpayer funds that are meant to support essential care.”

Bell added that HHS’ OIG is “determined to hold bad actors accountable.”

“Notable actions include convictions of individuals running sham hospices, identification of improper payments and vulnerabilities in emerging risk areas such as Medicaid payments for autism services, and uncovering gaps in foster care systems that contributed to failures to track and find missing children.”

The OIG report also notes that its investigations of healthcare fraud and abuse across the U.S. during the six-month period resulted in 317 total criminal actions, including criminal convictions.

“In one of the largest telemarketing Medicare fraud verdicts, the CEO of Power Mobility Doctor Rx, LLC, a health care software company, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $452 million in restitution after being convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and other related crimes,” according to the report. “He orchestrated a telemedicine and durable medical equipment fraud scheme worth more than $1 billion by targeting Medicare beneficiaries with misleading mailers, calls from offshore call centers, and sham telehealth consults to produce medically unnecessary orders.”

The report also highlights a couple who allegedly “ran a nationwide scheme that targeted Medicare beneficiaries, many in hospice care, by using untrained sales staff to generate orders for medically unnecessary, oversized bioengineered skin grafts.”

“They also accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks and directed nurse practitioners to apply unwarranted grafts,” according to the report.

The couple’s scheme resulted in over $1.2 billion in fraudulent claims submitted to federal healthcare programs, the report states.

“OIG’s innovative, multidisciplinary workforce includes law enforcement agents, auditors, evaluators, attorneys, program analysts, and data analysts,” Bell said. “OIG is unwavering in its commitment to root out fraud, waste, and abuse, and promote the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of HHS programs.”

The report’s release comes as the Trump administration has been moving to crack down on healthcare fraud and waste this year. The White House said in a May 29 news release that its anti-fraud task force is “moving at unprecedented speed and ferocity to root out the waste, abuse, and criminal exploitation of government programs that have drained billions from hardworking taxpayers.”

“We will find fraud,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed in a June 23 X post. “We will stop it. We will recover taxpayer dollars whenever the law permits, and we will restore integrity to the programs that millions of Americans rely on for their care.”

In January, HHS’ OIG reported a total monetary impact of $2.2 billion between April 1, 2025 and September 30, 2025, which included an estimated $147.4 million in potential cost savings

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