Medicaid provider allegedly billed $165K for dead patient's rides among fraud exposed in explosive report
A Colorado resident was charged with trying to steal hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars by billing the state’s Medicaid program for transporting a patient to doctor’s appointments — rides that would have taken place after that person had already died.
A new report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee revealed that taxpayer-funded healthcare programs, specifically Medicare and Medicaid, are rife with vulnerabilities that allow them to be exploited on the local, state and federal levels.
"Medicare and Medicaid fraud occurs nationwide and costs American taxpayers billions of dollars a year. Fraud is prevalent in all sectors of health care and is especially egregious in taxpayer-funded health care programs that are intended to serve vulnerable populations, including the elderly, disabled, children, and pregnant women," the report said. "Patients are suffering from identity theft, long waiting lists, substandard health care, and, in some cases, a lack of health care services due to fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid."
Fox News Digital highlighted some of the most egregious examples below.
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Wesam Yassin was one of two providers of non-emergency medical transportation, a Medicaid benefit for helping patients get to doctor’s appointments, charged by state and local prosecutors for fraudulent billing in Colorado in February 2026.
Yassin is accused of charging Colorado Medicaid a total of $3.3 million in questionable bills under a company called Sama Limo, according to the report. Yassin is accused of charging $283,000 for 64 rides for one person, coming out to over $4,000 per ride.
Roughly $165,000 of those charges came after the patient in question had already died, the report said.
"Proceeds from this scheme were allegedly used for personal gain, including the purchase of a home, furnishings, luxury vehicles, jewelry, and cosmetic surgery," a federal release announcing the charges said.
It also pointed to charges against Ashley Marie Stevens, who is accused of trying to bilk the state for over $1 million in taxpayer dollars. She is accused of billing the state some $400,000 for non-medical rides for herself and her family in addition to "ghost rides," which never even took place.
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The report also accused the hospice industry in California of raising suspicions of fraud.
"Investigators observed nearly 500 hospices operating in a three-mile radius in L.A. County, 137 hospices operating on Van Nuys Boulevard alone, and 89 companies registered to a single address in Van Nuys," the report said.
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The document also noted that House lawmakers raised concerns with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that an increase in home health and hospice providers raised red flags about possible healthcare fraud tied to foreign criminal groups earlier this year.
"The Committees were concerned about data from a March 2022 California State Auditor’s Report and HHS hospice ownership data, showing that L.A. County had more than 31 percent of the hospice agencies in the U.S. in 2022," the report said.
The California Department of Public Health had placed a freeze on new hospice licenses in January 2022. Despite that, however, the report found that 15 new hospices — located in a single Los Angeles County building — still got Medicare certification in 2023.
House Republicans are worried that potential hospice fraud is not the only area being targeted by international criminal groups.
The report highlighted allegations from 2024 in which "years-long, large-scale" schemes targeted as much as $3 billion in American taxpayer dollars via fake bills for urinary catheters.
Members of Russian organized crime groups bought 30 small medical supply companies already receiving federal dollars, and billed the Medicare system nearly $11 billion for urinary catheters, the report said. More than 99% of those funds never went out the door, however.
Similar medical equipment fraud schemes ensnared bad actors in Estonia, Pakistan, Georgia and Hong Kong.
Allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s social programs have been well documented and the subject of numerous state and federal probes.
One particular incident highlighted in the report involves a man named Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, who pleaded guilty to trying to defraud $6 million from a Minnesota autism therapy program paid for by state Medicaid dollars.
He and his co-defendants are accused of hiring unqualified people as behavior counselors and getting children to enroll by bribing their parents, the report said.
Yussuf admitted during his plea hearing that he did not actually know anyone with autism, the report said.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie told Fox News Digital that "combating fraud is a coast-to-coast battle."
"Every instance of fraud we uncover represents money stolen from taxpayers and care taken away from the patients who depend on it most," Guthrie said.