DOJ Charges 455 in $6.5 Billion Medicare Fraud Sweep

The scale of the alleged scheme — spanning fraudulent wound care billing and 90 licensed physicians — tests whether large-scale federal fraud enforcement translates into lasting structural...

The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against 455 individuals on June 25, 2026, in connection with alleged Medicare fraud totaling $6.5 billion, according to a report by CNN citing the DOJ announcement. The defendants include 90 physicians, making it one of the broader single-action healthcare fraud enforcement sweeps on record in terms of named defendants and alleged dollar volume.

Among the alleged schemes detailed in the DOJ announcement, fraudulent wound care billing accounted for approximately $2 billion of the total alleged losses to Medicare, per the CNN report. Wound care fraud typically involves billing federal health programs for procedures not performed, upcoded services, or medically unnecessary treatments — categories tracked annually by the HHS Office of Inspector General in its Work Plan reports (HHS OIG, public record).

The charges were filed across multiple federal districts; the specific breakdown by district had not been fully published in publicly available DOJ press releases as of this writing. The full list of defendants, charging documents, and jurisdictions would be contained in individual court filings accessible via PACER, the federal court records system, under the respective case numbers.

Medicare fraud enforcement has been a recurring federal priority across administrations of both parties. The Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team, known as HEAT, was established jointly by the DOJ and HHS in 2009 under the Obama administration and has been continued under subsequent administrations. Annual recoveries and charges under the False Claims Act are reported in the DOJ's annual FCA statistics, which are publicly available.

Several material facts remain unknown at this stage. It is not yet confirmed how many of the 455 individuals have entered pleas, whether any cooperation agreements exist, or what the projected Medicare recovery figure is. The identities of all defendants, the specific Medicare Administrative Contractors involved, and the geographic distribution of alleged fraud are not yet fully public. Those details would be disclosed in court filings on PACER and in subsequent DOJ press releases as cases proceed.