JJ Smith Uncovers Signature Collection Fraud in San Francsico

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These practices cost billions in wasteful spending, driving up costs for American families.

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most.

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Brought to you by the Coalition to Strength in America's Health Care.

And we continue at 105 in the afternoon on the John Phillips Show.

Mr. Randy Wiggs in Culver City.

John later on in her interview with Cron Ford, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee was asked about

what she's doing about the homeless encampment that was forced to move because of the Cal

Transconstruction.

And that's why our strategic plan focuses on getting people into stable housing, transitional

housing, not just to different areas to set up new encampments or new tent cities.

And so quite frankly, we're very focused on this.

Oh, she's a big abuser, huh?

Quite frankly.

Twice in one interview.

That is Catherine Barger levels.

800 2225 222 is telephone number 1 800 222 5222.

That is our pleasure to welcome our next guest to the program.

JJ Smith is an independent journalist who recently filmed something that went all over

the place, not just in the state of California, not just nationally, but internationally showing

election fraud going on in broad daylight right here in the state of California.

He filmed an illegal ballot signature scheme that he's going to explain right now.

JJ Smith.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Hey, how you doing?

How you doing?

We're doing fantastic and excellent work being on the scene and getting this fraud on camera

so that people can't say, oh, no, that's not going on or you're a conspiracy theorist

or you're spreading fake news, you're making things up.

You have the receipts.

I have the receipts.

Yes.

Can you explain what you go ahead?

I was astounded when I've seen it, it was strange to me.

Just exactly what was going on.

What was going on?

Well, people were telling me you can go up there and get $5 if you go and sign a piece

of papers.

So I said, okay, okay, and I've been looking into these things lately.

So I went up there to take a look at it to see what it was and it was, I didn't know

if it was petitions, ballots, whatever.

I knew it was one of those.

And when I get up there, I ask the woman, what I got to do, she told me, just sign a paper,

you get $5.

But while I'm right here, I over here, one person say you did two of them here and do

another one.

And then the woman on the left of me will tell somebody else, I'm sign this name and

this address in, I noticed that that's fraud right there, there used another people information.

So they weren't paying you for your name and your signature and your address, they were

paying you to put down the name, the address, the signature for someone who wasn't there.

Yes.

And did you say, hey, I don't know if that's kosher?

No, I didn't, I didn't want to bother on that, but I didn't say nothing.

I just got the information that I needed and I just still in the background and watched.

And how many people were going up to these desks, accepting the money for the fake signatures?

It was hundreds of people within the last two hours.

And they were just moving from one table to the next and citing these fake signatures

on any number of, of petitions, correct, correct.

And so you decided it would be a good idea to get out your camera and videotape this going

on.

Yes, I was, I was, I was filming it while I was speaking to the people at the same time

I was speaking, getting, seeing what was going on with the ballots, I was getting the information

filming right there at the same time.

And what were you thinking as all of this was going on?

Holy hell, they're doing this on tape.

I'm just thinking, I was just, I didn't know what to think.

The only thing I was thinking about is like, women, this doesn't seem right.

This doesn't seem right.

It seems suspicious to me.

And of course, big money is involved in all of this because these companies get paid

per signature by different organizations trying to get something qualified for the ballot.

Yeah, so far I heard it was, it was the company, the, the, the, or whatever building California.

And who knows what they were paying for signatures, but it could be a top dollar, I guess.

Correct.

And so after you recorded all of this, you decided that you were going to put it on

your social media platform and you've put up other videos on social media.

We've had you on this program before.

In fact, when you put up a video of someone I believe they were just dying of fentanyl

overdose right on the streets of San Francisco, that video went viral.

So you have a large platform.

You have a lot of people who follow your accounts, who monitor your stuff,

people in the news media who could retweet it and get it in front of a lot of different

eyeballs.

So you put it up on your social media account, correct?

Correct.

And that's when it went all over the place.

That's when I went all over the place.

I didn't expect for it to go as far as it did as to where the Secretary of California

calling me.

Whoa, when did that happen?

That's for that happened yesterday.

And was it someone who worked for the officer?

Was it Shirley Weber herself?

That was her in someone else that worked for the office.

And so what did they say?

They want you to turn over all the videos to them or they want to meet with you in Sacramento

or they already had enough for what they had, but they was just trying to figure out what

more behind it that they didn't have that I probably didn't put up.

And did you send it to them or did they just see it on social media?

They already did.

Okay.

I've seen it.

They already saw it.

They already had it.

Now, I saw you put something up on social media that you were surprised after you put

the video up that you were getting attention from television stations in Sacramento and other

markets, but that the Bay Area News was slow to pick up on it and it happened there.

And it happened here still.

And I want normally they reach out to me, but not one of them has reached out yet.

I wonder what that's about.

Yeah.

I'm surprised.

I'm shocked.

Do you think that there's any reforms that could come from this video being posted on social

media?

Well, I think things are still going to go the same way they are.

They always had voter fraud everywhere all over this place and it's going to continue to

be voter fraud no matter where you go.

So I don't think too much is going to come up out of it.

What do you think about California's all vote by mail elections where the ballots go

out in the mail and they say, oh, yeah, there's no fraud that goes on.

Everything is clean.

Everything is legit.

You could accept our results.

It takes us a month to count the ballots, but that's okay.

That's how long it takes.

What do you make of that?

I don't, I don't trust it.

And I still believe they still supposed to be pushed to voter ID.

I don't trust it.

It's supposed to be voter ID, then we'll know who's voting and there wouldn't be no problem

in voting by mail and all that stuff.

I never believed in that.

And then after you saw what you saw, I'm sure you're not changing your mind anytime soon.

Nope.

I'm not changing my mind anytime soon.

I'll tell you, for whatever reason, the opposition to voter ID is vociferous.

They are willing to die on that hill if that's what it takes.

And it never, I could never wrap my hat around their arguments.

Their intellectual arguments as to why voter ID is a bad thing.

When you need to present a picture identification to get on an airplane, you need to present

one to rent a hotel room or a rental car.

You need one to get on a military base.

Hell, you can't even go if you're on vacation.

You can't even go parasailing without showing them a picture ID.

Virtually everywhere you go from the store.

Yeah, you can't buy a six pack at Ralph's without showing a picture ID.

And all of a sudden, when you say, okay, well, it's good enough to buy a six pack at Ralph's,

we should know that our elections are fair and the person who is showing up to vote is

in fact the person whose name is on the voter rolls.

And they say, oh no, that's one bridge too far.

People don't have access to picture IDs.

We can't do that.

It leads you to question why exactly are they fighting this so hard?

And then you see things like this.

You see things like the videos that you posted and you go, okay, I know why they want it

to be the honor system because this is how it's done.

Correct.

Yeah, that's not right no more.

Now, what would you say?

Because here's what I assume the secretary of state is going to claim.

And the people who oppose voter ID are going to claim.

They're going to say, oh, this is a one off.

It's one company that was behaving badly.

And we've slapped them on the wrist.

We've punished them.

And this is something that is atypical.

It doesn't really go on that often.

Move along.

Don't look over there.

Don't think that we need voter ID because there's widespread fraud.

There's not.

This was just one bad company.

I don't believe it because this is not the first time this has ever happened.

With the same company.

This is not the first time.

So it can't be a one off like this is never going to happen again.

It's going to continue happening.

Did you talk to any of the people who were giving them the signatures and find

out how many times they've done this through the years?

No, I haven't spoke to them yet.

But quite sure I'm going to.

Oh, I'm sure I'm sure any number of people are going to reach out to you now

and tell you their story.

Yeah.

But I bet you you're right.

I bet you this has been going on for quite some time.

And this is something that is business as usual in terms of collecting

signatures to get an initiative on the ballot.

Yeah.

And that's how to get so many things passed around here.

Are you going to keep your eye out for more of this?

And if you see more of it, you're going to record it and put it on social media.

Yes, I am good.

Good.

And I'll tell you more people should be like you because it's not like they were

being discreet about it.

They were out on the street in broad daylight and they were advertising it.

And to my eye, if you're going to be that bold as to do it in a densely populated

city where you're just up front about the fraud that you're committing,

you believe that the population is so checked out that nobody gives a damn.

Yes.

So I believe if they were so bold to do it like that, they're going to continue on doing it.

How many people in this?

Where they were doing it.

How many people do you think passed by them and saw what was going on?

And just kept walking.

There was a lot of people, but a lot of people didn't probably not understand how illegal it was.

And a lot of people didn't actually know that they wasn't using the people who were signing

wasn't using their own information.

It leads you to believe that so many things that we've seen on our ballot that make no sense.

Randy last hour was talking about all these kidney bills that make the ballot.

I have never once gone to a bar.

I have never once gone to a dinner party.

I have never once sat next to someone on an airplane who has real strong opinions about kidney dialysis.

Yet it seems like every year we vote on one or two or more bills that deal with kidney dialysis.

And I'm thinking who the hell is signing these petitions?

Who the hell is so worked up over kidney dialysis that they can get these things on the ballot year after year?

Well, I guess this would explain it.

This is explaining.

Now you see how everything get on the petition.

Well, I'm sure people are reaching out to you all over the globe right now.

And this is something that is certainly top of mind for a lot of people because people are not believing in the process right now.

People do not believe that the people who count the ballots, the people who produce the ballots are planted straight.

And your video proves that at least in this instance, the system is not working.

The system is being taken advantage of and it's being taken advantage of in ways that are blatantly illegal and the law breaking is being done right out in the open.

So I hope people continue to talk to you.

I hope I'm very thankful that you were able to make yourself available for this interview and for other interviews because you have an extremely important story that needs to be told.

Yes.

Thank you for allowing me to opportunity to tell it here.

All right. Well, we'll definitely keep an eye out for future videos.

You do great work documenting what is reality?

What is going on on the streets of San Francisco on a daily basis?

Because the politicians say that what you are documenting is not happening.

And people will be able to decide whether or not they believe the politicians or they're lying eyes.

Correct. Yeah.

All right.

JJ Smith, you can follow him on X if you want to see his videos at war, W-A-R-241-822-36.

That's war 241-822-36.

JJ Smith, thanks so much for stopping by.

Thank you.

Today, excessive delays and denials from big insurers keep patients from accessing the care they need.

And when care is urgent, these delays can be disastrous.

These practices cost billions in wasteful spending, driving up costs for American families.

But while big insurers put up barriers, America's hospitals and health systems are in your corner, navigating endless reviews and appeals to get you the care you need when you need it most.

It's time to curb these harmful practices and put the focus back on patients.

Brought to you by the Coalition to Strength in America's Health Care.

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800-222-5222 is telephone number 1-800-222-5222.

If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny.

Don't like show at gmail.com.

That's Johnny. Don't like show at gmail.com.

And it's so funny to me as I look at the email back, Randy.

On days when we talk about Katie Porter, as opposed to days when we don't talk about Katie Porter in terms of the volume of the email.

There hasn't been a lot of Katie news this week has there.

Well, maybe there will be you never know, although I was going to save this for the top of the two o'clock.

But the same day as the Karen Bass poll comes out, we also got from the Emerson College poll, a new governor's poll.

And it shows some interesting changes in the governor's race.

And that poll shows that now there is a possible front runner in Eric Swellwell being all the way up to 17% followed by Steve Hilton at 13%

Bianco at 11, Steyer at 11, and Katie Porter in fifth place with 8%.

And that certainly would jive with what we heard from Steve Hilton yesterday.

When he said he believed that the Democratic Party would all unite behind Eric Swellwell, and the November ballot would be a battle in a contest between Eric Swellwell and Steve Hilton.

Well, if you look at the top three Democrats, the ones that are pulling outside of the other field, you've got Katie Porter, you've got Tom Steyer, and you've got Eric Swellwell.

We know that the California Democratic Party does not like Katie Porter.

We know that they don't like Tom Steyer. They just like his money.

And Eric Swellwell has more name ID than a lot of the other candidates combined.

I think Eric Swellwell is going to get the nod.

I think that's the likely scenario.

And I think that the second most likely scenario would be two Republicans on the November ballot.

Or maybe it would be a Republican and Tom Steyer, I don't know.

But certainly the Democratic Party is going to have to pick a horse to all get behind to avoid being locked out of the November ballot.

And as of right now, it's looking like Eric Swellwell is certainly the most likely candidate.

And this poll has quite an impact on Paul Mitchell's simulator of how this election in June is going to roll out.

The threat of a Republican on Republican runoff has now gone down from 25% to 20%.

800 2225222 is a telephone number 1 800 2225222.

And the details of the interview are not finalized yet.

You're going to jinx it.

Should I?

I mean, you're might jinx it, but go ahead and announce it.

I mean, we have it in writing that they're going to do it.

We just don't know the time yet.

Johnny, who might be coming on the show in person tomorrow?

Tomorrow on the program in person.

It'll be Spencer Pratt's first time on the John Phillips show since he and that well ever really.

Even before he announced that he was running for mayor and or after he's going to be on the show tomorrow.

No.

Karen, we offer you a spot too, but I don't think you're going to take us up on it.

No.

Now she's too busy at public radio and K and X.

I don't even think she does public radio because they do some pretty deep dives into how corrupt loss is.

Yeah, it's basically just what spectrum and K and X and cable news pretty much.

And maybe that's why she's at 20%.

So it'll be sometime between noon and three.

Let the world know and we're totally jinxing it now, but Spencer Pratt is supposed to do the show tomorrow.

And then Mr. Peanut's supposed to do the show on Friday, right?

Well, he changed it.

So Antonio Virgo said we're supposed to be on Friday.

And now it's going to be a week from Friday.

I told you what happens when we announce guests.

No, peanut.

We will have peanut M&Ms in the studio.

Well, he's going to be on the phone.

So I guess there's no point.

Well, we can send some to his office.

We could.

Are you going to pay the postage?

You know what?

For that, I would.

If we can get his team to film Tony V,

opening a Amazon box full of peanut M&Ms, I will pay 20 bucks.

No, peanut.

All right.

So there is a story that is gone viral that was produced by CBS News

that talked about fraud in Los Angeles regarding hospice care facilities that may or may

not actually exist.

And this is something we've heard about for a very long time, hospice fraud in California,

elder care fraud in California, but CBS News nationally has discovered that Los Angeles

is the epicenter for hospice fraud in this country.

Signing up people that don't know they're in hospice, not taking care of people that are in hospice

and billing the taxpayer for millions and millions of dollars.

For more, we go to a special report from CBS News nationally.

What were the medical consequences?

Is it sweeps?

It must be if they play that music.

I was terrified.

It's the taxpayer-funded-

It's the haunting xylophone that really tells you this is an important story.

I was terrified.

It's the taxpayer-funded system that's supposed to get you through your final days.

I didn't feel protected.

I didn't feel safe.

Hospice care to help those who are dying and their families.

They said you're in hospice and I said, what?

If you're in hospice, you're only supposed to have six months or left to live.

What are you talking about?

Do I look like I'm not?

That's what she was known for.

Ken with CBS News.

Do you mind opening the door?

A CBS News investigation found it is ripe for fraud.

By the way, this is such a big story.

It has its own sizzle reel.

Because everything that you're hearing now, you're going to hear in the full piece

just without the piano and the xylophone.

A CBS News investigation found it is ripe for fraud, especially in California.

You can't throw a rock without hitting a hospice.

We have that many people circle in the drain, huh?

Well, and apparently most of these companies are unlike a three-mile stretch of victory boulevard in Van Aes.

Hundreds of red-flight providers vanishing overnight.

Well, there's no hospice there.

Companies accused of overbilling.

How does that make you feel?

Real patients being denied care.

Really sad.

Because I talk to them every day.

I'm sorry.

Costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

You can't explain that.

There's no explaining that.

What's being done about it is my government doing anything to protect my taxpayer dollars.

I share it.

I have the frustration.

Hey!

A little cameo in this story from Bob.

Bob Bonta.

Bob Bonta made himself available to CBS News.

Bob Bonta.

It would have looked worse if he wasn't in this story at all.

I share it.

I have the frustration.

And why it's costing so much more than money?

It makes me lose faith in the system that is built to protect us.

Okay, now I'm going to skip a few seconds because it's not going to play well over the radio.

The sound of the reporter playing pickleball with the woman who wasn't really in hospice,

but they said she wasn't hospice.

Wow.

So she's in hospice carriage.

She's well enough to play pickleball.

That's a miracle.

They had that sizzle reel and then decided to waste the next six seconds with that.

Let's move on.

Oh!

You got a point.

Woo!

That was great.

Let's do it again.

Lynn, you are old and in hospice, so I would be a little bit more proud about my accomplishments, but.

69-year-old Dr. Lynn Ayani just ran me up and down the pickleball court.

But two years ago, she was, according to Medicare records, dying in hospice care.

I was in treatment.

Boy, we've learned so many things today.

People don't know that they're in hospice and they also don't know that they signed a petition to get a kidney bill on the ballot.

There's so much you don't know about your own self.

And then a story that we probably don't have time to get to, you also don't know that you signed up to be an Uber driver.

And if you hang out with Bill Cosby, you don't know that you had sex.

And a feeling you're going to take it there.

As physical therapy, simply, because I had had kind of an injury on the pickleball court.

The administrator at the office was like, they're not going to pay any of your claims.

And I was shocked.

They said you're in hospice and I said, what?

So much to look great.

So she goes in for a little PT with her tennis elbow and they say, hey, aren't you supposed to be nearly dead?

Because on the farm here, it says you have 45 different kinds of cancer.

What are you talking about? Are you kidding me? Do I look like I'm not?

So she was, no, no, I know you.

Ionnie's Medicare number had been stolen and used by a company to fraudulently enroll her in hospice care, which she obviously didn't need.

I think we can move on from the pickleball guys.

You know, as I sit here listening to this, it now makes perfect sense why they went so nuts in Minnesota.

When we started figuring out the fraud that was going on there with the daycares and the schools and all that business.

Because this is such big business that if we figure out what's going on, not just in Minnesota, but around the country, it's game over for them.

That meant Ionnie had no coverage and no easy way of getting unenrolled from hospice.

Obviously, this was a major hassle. Lots of phone calls, lots of paperwork.

What were the medical consequences?

I was terrified. I mean, you know, something can happen. That's why you have health insurance of any kind.

And just to thank you literally without coverage because of some ridiculous fraudulent thing.

My name is Adam Yamaguchi. I'm with CBS News.

A CBS News investigation found an industry ripe for fraud, especially in California.

Well, California is number one at a lot.

And keep in mind, this is a state that loves to regulate you to death.

It doesn't matter what it is that you do. They want to say in it, yet they allow this to go on.

Are we surprised at all? This is the same state that sent out $30 billion in fraudulent unemployment checks in 2020.

And only some of that money went to those stakeholders in Vegas.

I saw that with my own two eyes.

Companies accused of overbilling.

Real patients denied care and it's costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

The hospice Ioni was fraudulently enrolled in. It's called fortuna when we called no one answered.

Because why would they?

A good majority of this piece is the reporter calling all these businesses and none of them have a working phone number.

Which tells you something that Rob Bonta was not investigating them because that would have been a pretty easy one to figure out.

No, but you see he spends all of his time suing Donald Trump and going after the card rooms.

Because he thinks suing Donald Trump will make him popular with the Democratic electorate.

And going after the card rooms will make him popular with the Indians who finances campaigns.

But this is what he's supposed to do with his power.

This is what that office is supposed to be in charge of finding this kind of waste fraud and abuse.

Did I call him Rob? My bad.

Bonta.

The mail box is full and cannot accept any messages at this time.

The state of California increased monitoring of the.

Boy, that gives me some throwbacks to a person I used to work for that would always complain that you didn't call him.

And then when you try to call him, it will go straight to a voicemail that was full.

I think I know who you're talking about.

We don't have to go any further than that.

The state of California increased monitoring of the hospice industry four years ago identifying the hallmarks of fraud.

Fortuna has two of them and it's hardly alone.

So California put a moratorium on new companies applying to be hospice.

And they say they were going to crack down on all the existing hospice companies which there are so many of these it's unbelievable.

Especially all within this three mile stretch of victory Boulevard.

But even though they put out guidelines of here are the signs that these are fraudulent companies.

Most of the ones that CBS news investigated had plenty of the signs that they were scams yet they were still legally operating in the state of California.

I'm surprised they just had full mailboxes and there was no ability to leave a message.

Because if you think about it, if they just put a little bit of effort into it, they could have a message that says we'd love to pick up the phone right now.

But we're sorry Agnes just flatlined.

Oh boy.

CBS news analyzed every hospice license to LA County or than 1700 and checked for the same warning signs the state used.

I know LA County is a big county, but that should tell you right there are some things wrong that there are 1700 licensed hospice facilities.

You think and check for the same warning signs the state used like multiple hospices packed into one building or caregivers whose patients supposedly at that store are discharged alive.

Three years after the state crackdown, which included a moratorium on new hospice licenses, our investigation found more than 40% of agencies still show at least three of these state defined indicators of potential fraud.

So the crackdown wasn't much of a crackdown.

No, no one's looking at them at all.

So victory boulevard seems to be a hotbed of...

Yep, you can't throw a rock without hitting a hospice.

Oh poor valley.

Which leads you to believe that it's a cadre of people who are all doing it in cahoots with one another if they're all using the same addresses.

Sheila Clark, a hospice patient advocate, took us to what she described as the ground zero for hospice fraud, a three mile stretch of Los Angeles that's home to nearly 500 hospice company offices.

One hospice here that hits all six of California's red flags of possible fraud.

Well, there's no hospice there.

Legal office.

Yeah.

With a ton of mail just...

Yeah, none of these are even doctor's offices let alone paces where patients are dying. They're just empty office buildings.

A ton of mail just sitting there.

Yeah, look at this.

This agent's...

Vanis is such a weird place. You get your three mile stretch of hospices all on this one stretch of victory boulevard.

And then you go the other direction up and down Vanis boulevard and it's a three mile stretch of bail bondsmen.

Is there a big Somali community in Vanis?

No.

A ton of mail just sitting there.

Yeah, look at this.

This agency, VML, hit every fraud indicator in our analysis and build Medicare roughly $49,000 per patient, about three and a half times the national average.

They need their curative treatment.

They need their...

They're...

You know, they just...

They need to be taken care of.

They need to know that they can get what they need when they need it.

Not hit a roadblock because somebody's scammed them.

Yeah, if you're denied medical coverage that you're paying for because your identity was stolen in the Medicare world, that's a huge problem.

For whatever reason the government doesn't regard it as a huge problem though.

People should go to prison if they do that to someone.

The number you dial is not in service.

Of course, because why would it be?

Clark tells us when offices like these close abruptly, it's real patients in desperate need who pay the price.

How does that make you feel as somebody who deals with patients who need this?

Sad.

Really sad.

Because I talk to them every day.

I'm sorry, I can't.

I wonder how they can go for a full year and still not have their license revoked.

Is that a systemic failure?

We need to be responsive to the red flags.

Hey, it's Bobby!

Oh, yeah.

With more buckets of cliches.

Bob Bonta.

I wonder how they can go for a full year and still not have their license revoked.

Is that a systemic failure?

We need to be responsive to the red flags and react to them, not just count them, but do something.

Take action.

Our main lane is the accountability side, the criminal investigations, civil investigations.

That's after the damage is done though, unfortunately.

State Attorney General Rob Bond.

Okay, so why aren't you doing anything about it?

You were the guy at the top of the pyramid.

You are the Attorney General.

You're in charge of the California Department of Justice.

Why are you wasting your time suing Trump 45 times from Sunday instead of doing this?

It doesn't look good when an investigative reporter from CBS News

can literally hand the top cop in California a list of fraudulent businesses

that still have their licenses.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta says it's awful.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You know, I don't want to fact check CBS News, but I'm going to have to do it here.

That's not his name.

Bob Bonta.

There we go.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Wait, hold on Rob.

You know, maybe I just fix this for them and then I could send it back to them

because I don't want anybody accusing this great piece of CBS for being fake news.

So I'm going to fix it with a little help from Leanne.

State Attorney General Bob Bonta says it's awful.

All better now.

State Attorney General Bob Bonta says his office has brought hospice fraud criminal cases against 109 defendants

at about two dozen civil cases.

What would you say to citizens who are throwing up their hands and saying how long is this going to persist?

Is my government doing anything to protect my taxpayer dollars?

Again, I share it.

I have the frustration.

So to the citizens that remain frustrated, I understand.

I share your frustration.

cliche cliche.

I'm just not doing anything about it because I'm wasting my time on other things.

Please know that we have increased our efforts.

We're working over time on prevention and on accountability.

And we will continue until hospice fraud in California is rooted out.

CBS news nobody's buying what Bobby's selling.

That is a hollow statement.

CBS news reached out to them almost 60 hospices that have five or more flags.

Many numbers were disconnected or went straight to voicemail.

Representatives that some others denied any fraud and said they run legitimate hospices with real patients.

Back in Van Nijs, we tried the hospice right next door to VML.

We knocked.

Then called during the posted business hours.

You can't leave them at this because the person you call has a quick nail lock.

They're just been sent out yet.

That sounds legitimate.

Wow.

We couldn't reach anyone.

And we'd soon realize these operations may be connected.

Part of what advocates describe as a web of hospice agencies that come and go.

But continue submitting a steady stream of bills to taxpayers.

Whether the patients are dying.

Or like Ioni are still out playing pickleball.

Okay, we really did not need to end the piece with pickleball.

But there you go.

That is the incredible investigative work being done by CBS news.

The ground zero for hospice fraud is in Los Angeles, California.

In theory, all real hospices should have someone answering the phone at all times.

Because if you have a relative in there and you want to find out how they're doing.

In theory, that information should be communicated to you.

It's a life and death situation.

Yet none of them had working phones.

Unreal.

800-222-5222 is a telephone number.

1-800-222-5222.

If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny.

Don't like show at gmail.com.

That's Johnny.

Don't like show at gmail.com.

And Randy, you're monitoring the mailbag.

Well, here's one that comes from broad.

And Johnny don't like show at gmail.com.

The story you're talking about right now happened to me.

I was in a Tarzanah rehab on receiptable of art.

I was discharged.

And a few days ago when I went to change my primary care doctor,

they still had me shown as under hospice care six months after my release.

This is really common.

It really is.