Dr. Mehmet Oz pressed New York senior care centers Tuesday over Medicaid bills that far outpaced the empty rooms he found, as Trump offered whistleblowers a cut of recovered fraud.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz walked into senior care sites in Flushing, Queens, on Tuesday, handed over warning letters, and challenged managers on billing that did not match what he saw on the floor.
The visits were two of more than 80 multi-agency federal stops across New York City that day, many of which included arrests, as the White House the same day unveiled a $25 million Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program aimed at tips on government waste.
Daily Mail reporting detailed Oz’s stops at Kent Senior Care and Evergreen Adult Day Care, where he told staff the numbers on paper did not line up with the rooms in front of him.
At Kent Senior Care, Oz arrived around 8:30 a.m. and told the director the facility’s bills ran far higher than the crowd justified.
He put the problem in plain terms.
Oz told the director:
"The bills are much higher than they should be. The billing is for more people. It doesn't look very crowded here."
He pressed further on the pattern federal payers were seeing.
Oz said:
"The bills we're getting are as though it's completely full all the time,"... "because we don't believe you."
The Kent director said the early hour came before patients arrived at a 70-person capacity site, and insisted the center bills only for seniors who actually attend and sign attendance slips. Oz described a different scene after his team arrived: people walking in without signing, then staff scrambling to collect signatures once they saw the federal presence.
Oz later told Fox News Digital:
"People were just walking in there without signing anything and then after I showed up and he saw what we were doing with my team, he started collecting these documents to be signed."
He summed up the visit in one line: "the whole experience was suspicious."
At Evergreen Adult Day Care, the manager said about 200 seniors came three days a week and 150 on the other two days, with some patients in classes or at doctor appointments.
Oz said he could see only about 25 people and that the billing math failed a basic test.
"The numbers don't seem to add up," he said. He added that federal bills treated the place as if it ran full when the floor told another story.
Oz also noted missing equipment he expected in a heavy-need senior setting.
"I don't see any wheelchairs here," he said.
He framed the stakes for taxpayers in blunt terms.
Oz asked:
"It's free for them, not free for the taxpayers. Is that what our federal tax dollars for Medicaid is supposed to go to? Or is it life- saving heart surgery? Or, you know, new therapies for cancer?"
On the business model itself, he was direct: "We know from the billing here that there's no way this business is running in the way that they claim to be running without something being wrong." He also called the operation "really a clubhouse for crime," language that reflects his accusation, not an adjudicated finding.
Oz separately claimed that what he described as Chinese organized crime may be paying some people more than $1,000 to help move attendance scams. That allegation rests on his statement in the reporting; no separate charging document or independent confirmation appears in the available account.
The same day, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance announced the $25 million Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program from the Oval Office, with Oz, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, and influencer Nick Shirley present.
The White House said anyone whose tip leads to a fraud conviction or significant federal enforcement action can be eligible for up to $30,000, with the Justice Department administering payments. Trump described a one-percent commission on fraud a tip helps uncover and said he will settle fights when more than one person claims the same reward.
Trump said:
"I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions,"... "It'll be a binding arbitration."
Vance, who has led a fraud task force Trump established in March, cast the program as an open invitation.
Vance said:
"The president has said it must stop. It is stopping. And if you want to help us stop it, you get to share in the rewards,"
Shirley, 24, whose video last year on alleged fake childcare centers in Minnesota’s Somali community helped trigger later investigations, searches, and arrests, told the room: "When you expose fraud, you help save America." The White House had said Trump would present Shirley a $10,000 check; that check was not handed over in front of journalists.
In July, Fahima Mahamud pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States by submitting inflated reimbursement claims for meals allegedly served to children at her childcare center, the Justice Department said. The White House said Mahamud appeared in Shirley’s video. Early inspectors had said some Minnesota centers in that video were operating as expected; later enforcement, including the Mahamud plea, moved the other direction.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has promised a "massive effort to combat fraud and abuse" in Medicaid. The federal stops in Queens put that promise next to empty chairs, high bills, and warning letters delivered in person.
Oz’s message inside the centers was not subtle. Federal dollars billed as if the rooms were packed. The rooms he walked were not. Taxpayers fund the gap either way, in wasted Medicaid payments or in care that never reaches the sick.
When billing and attendance cannot both be true, someone is lying to the people who pay the freight. The crackdown is overdue, and the whistleblower checks only work if the public keeps feeding the tips.
