California Couple Arrested for $7.45 Million Medicare Hospice Fraud Scheme

FBI SWAT personnel cut through a metal front gate in San Dimas, California, early Thursday morning and ordered Gladwin and Amelou Gill out over loudspeakers. The couple had been running a hospice with a 97% patient survival rate over five years. In Medicare fraud enforcement, that figure is a primary audit trigger.

Medicare's hospice benefit reimburses providers at a daily rate for end-of-life care for patients certified by a physician as having six months or less to live. That design creates the opening fraud operators exploit: enroll healthy patients, bill the daily rate, repeat.

Gladwin Gill, 66, a psychologist, and Amelou Gill, 70, a registered nurse, co-own 626 Hospice, operating as St. Francis Palliative Care in Glendale. CMS data put their five-year mortality rate at 2.3%. Prosecutors allege the couple submitted more than $5.2 million in fraudulent claims and collected over $4 million for services not rendered or not medically necessary, directing funds toward mortgage payments, car payments, and air travel. They allegedly charged $30,000 per patient, more than double the national average of $13,200 annually. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, present at the raid, said the Gills registered the hospice in their daughter's name to bypass their own criminal histories.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli described the scheme: "They've been bilking the taxpayers for over seven million dollars, close to eight million dollars, and it's all total, fraudulent hospice services. They were signing up people who are not terminally ill, they were forging the documents, the medical records, and they were collecting taxpayer dollars."

The arrests opened a coordinated sweep called "Operation Never Say Die," targeting phantom hospice facilities across Southern California. Fifteen defendants face charges alleging nearly $60 million in losses; eight were arrested Thursday, including three nurses, a chiropractor, and a psychologist. One scheme allegedly paid healthy Medicare beneficiaries $300 monthly to pose as terminal patients. Among others charged: Lolita Beronilla Minerd, 65, of Anaheim, whose hospice had an 85% survival rate, and Nita Almuete Paddit Palma, 76, who allegedly ran three fraudulent hospices while incarcerated in a federal prison in Seattle.

The scope of LA County's hospice industry reflects years of minimal oversight. Providers grew 1,500% between 2010 and 2022 per the California State Auditor; the county total now exceeds that of 36 U.S. states and is 33 times higher than Florida's statewide count. One Van Nuys office plaza housed 89 registered hospices; Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo found 197 at a single Van Nuys Boulevard address. CMS estimates LA County accounts for 18% of all U.S. hospice billing, representing $3.5 billion in Medicare claims.

When choosing a hospice provider, survival rate is the most accessible fraud signal. Medicare's Care Compare tool publishes provider-level outcome data, and rates far above the national norm warrant scrutiny. Red flags also include facilities operating from commercial office buildings without clinical infrastructure, costs well above $13,200 per patient annually, and enrollment pressure without formal physician certification of terminal illness. Suspected fraud can be reported to the HHS Inspector General at 1-800-HHS-TIPS.

Operation Never Say Die was led by Vice President JD Vance's Anti-Fraud Task Force. CMS has suspended hundreds of hospice licenses in California, including at least 221 in Los Angeles. FBI Los Angeles Assistant Director Akil Davis warned: "The United States loses hundreds of billions of dollars annually to health care fraud at the expense of all American taxpayers, whose benefits decrease as premiums, co-payments, and taxes grow.