Arizona U.S. attorney details new healthcare fraud strike force

PHOENIX – Arizona U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine said a new federal healthcare fraud strike force will use $300 million from the “one big beautiful bill” to combat scams targeting the state’s elderly and low-income residents.

Speaking Thursday on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show, Courchaine said his office has resolved more than $130 million in Medicaid fraud cases this year alone. The new West Coast strike force, announced last week, covers Arizona, Nevada and Northern California.

Courchaine said Arizona’s population boom has drawn fraudsters preying on vulnerable groups, particularly seniors and Medicaid-eligible families.

He said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is using a new data analytics system that flags suspicious billing in real time, which has helped uncover fraud in hospice care, sober living homes and wound care.

“We’re going to bring everyone together. We’re going to break out the silos and we’re going to flood the zone with federal resources to attack this problem,” Courchaine said.

He noted the task force will tap state and local prosecutors alongside federal agencies, with the $300 million supplementing prosecutorial services at every level.

“What’s the federal government good for? Money,” he said.

Courchaine pushed back on the idea that healthcare fraud is victimless, citing patients left with unnecessary skin grafts and scars in the $1 billion-plus wound care case, and addiction patients denied real treatment in a $600 million sober living scheme.

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