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FIRST ON FOX: Vice President JD Vance is ramping up the administration’s targeting of fraud after President Donald Trump appointed him to head an anti-fraud task force last week, including the implementation of an AI platform to quickly identify and address fraud.
Vance’s task force is currently working with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, run by Dr. Mehmet Oz, and last month, CMS identified and suspended 70 hospice and home health providers in Los Angeles after they were flagged as high risk fraudulent providers. The 70 hospice and home health providers had their funding paused in just one week after being identified by the task force and CMS, Fox News Digital is told.
“As the task force to root out waste, fraud and abuse ramps up its work, we expect [the number of potentially fraudulent hospice and home health providers] to grow exponentially,” a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital.
Vance and Oz announced in February that $259.5 million in Medicaid funds would be withheld from Minnesota as a result of fraud concerns that gripped the state shortly before Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s former running mate, announced that he will not seek a third term.
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Vice President JD Vance is escalating the administration’s anti-fraud efforts after being appointed by President Donald Trump to lead a new federal task force targeting waste and abuse. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
The task force is going beyond the targeting of Minnesota, and Trump suggested Democratic-led states would be a focus during the unveiling of the task force last week.
“It seems that it’s usually in blue states,” the president said. “If it’s in a red state, we’re going there too, but it seems that it’s heavily, heavily Democrat.”
Vance’s task force plans to utilize the same template that CMS used to locate fraud in Minnesota, which involves an internal fraud detection artificial intelligence system that flags claims for review or blocks those identified as likely fraudulent.
Quality Learning Center in Minnesota was identified at the center of an alleged childcare fraud scandal in the state. (Madelin Fuerste/Fox News)
Prior to the Trump administration, Health and Human Services (HHS) and CMS would have to manually dis-enroll organizations suspected of fraud, whereas the system being utilized by the task force and other agencies involved allows the identification of fraud in a more rapid and fluid manner.
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The task force is actively hiring CMS technologists who will deploy the AI system across the country.
“Vice President Vance looks forward to carrying out the President’s War on Fraud,” a Vance spokesperson told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. “The American people deserve better than being ripped off by people who hate this country, and the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will ensure that essential taxpayer-funded services are used to support the hard-working Americans who rely on them, instead of being used by fraudsters and criminals.”
Authorities in Minnesota launched a separate investigation in 2022, under the Biden Departmne of Justice, into the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which prosecutors later described as a key player in what became one of the largest fraud schemes involving pandemic relief funds.
Working alongside Dr. Mehmet Oz’s CMS, the task force recently helped suspend 70 high-risk hospice and home health providers in Los Angeles, halting their funding within a week. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
DR OZ DETAILS ‘WEAPONIZATION OF FRAUD’ IN MINNESOTA, ESTIMATES TOTAL MEDICAID FRAUD TO BE $100 BILLION
Over time, investigators uncovered about $250 million in fraudulent claims, and 78 individuals were eventually charged. Prosecutors have also suggested that the total amount connected to the broader scheme could be in the billions.
During an event in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, earlier this month, Vance responded to a question by Fox News Digital regarding fraud ahead of Trump’s executive order establishing the anti-fraud task force.
Vance said that the administration has uncovered fraud amounting to “$19 billion at least” since the administration has been investigating the Twin Cities, and he alluded to California as being the next big target for identifying fraud.
The initiative is expanding beyond Minnesota — where hundreds of millions in Medicaid funds were withheld — while signaling a broader focus on fraud in Democratic-led states. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
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“We know there’s a lot of fraud in California, and we’re trying to get to the bottom of exactly what it looks like and what we’ve done in the Trump administration,” Vance said in response to a question by Fox News Digital.
“And the president has really empowered us to do this, is to take the first national look at the way the American people have been defrauded over many, many years,” Vance added.
