DEATH FOR DOLLARS: One Doctor Linked to 126 Hospices, 2,800 ‘Terminal’ Patients, $71 MILLION Haul

With near $72 million in Medicare reimbursements in 2024 alone. The doctor is Rajiv Bhuva. In 2024, he was the doctor of record for 2,791 hospice patients. No doctor in California was responsible for more. He must be very good. In fact, in 2024, only two percent of his patients died. The average lifespan of a patient on hospice is 92 days. Based on those assumptions, we would expect at least 700 patients to die over the course of a year (Vitas). So: Dr. Bhuva must be superb. Or superbly corrupt and would be better off in federal prison.

CBS taking a page from Nick Shirley:

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CBS took a closer look: Dr. Kristina Newport, chief medical officer at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, said the kind of numbers linked to Bhuva and other highly prolific medical providers in the industry raise an array of questions. “They would have a superhuman schedule to do that in a meaningful way,” Newport believes…. The only California hospice physician with a higher Medicare reimbursement total in recent years was Dr. Domingo Barrientos, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud in 2024 and is currently serving a federal prison sentence (CBS).

The most connected hospice doctor in California

A CBS News Investigation found one Los Angeles County hospice physician’s name, Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024, according to the last full year of available data.

By Laura Geller, Rachel Gold, Adam Yamaguchi and Grace Manthey, CBS, April 7, 2026:

The workload of hospice doctors
Physicians who oversee hospice clinics deliver a critical and delicate form of care to patients confronting terminal illness with the goal of helping them find dignity and comfort at the end of life. No active physicians oversaw more of these cases in California, or were reimbursed with more taxpayer money, than Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, according to federal records.

But how Bhuva’s name came to be listed on reimbursements for at least 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024 is a question that has puzzled advocates who have tracked the unusual explosion of hospice providers in Southern California in recent years.

While fraud in the hospice industry is a long-running and complex problem, the role of physicians – knowingly or unwittingly facilitating it – has largely gone overlooked.

Dr. Kristina Newport, chief medical officer at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, said the kind of numbers linked to Bhuva and other highly prolific medical providers in the industry raise an array of questions.

“They would have a superhuman schedule to do that in a meaningful way,” Newport believes.

Watch the CBS News Investigation revealing one Los Angeles County hospice physician’s name on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024. CBS News
In a brief interview at the front door of his mid-century stucco home in a mountainside suburb of Los Angeles, Bhuva told CBS News he doubted the figures and said there was no statutory limit to the number of hospices any one physician can staff. But after a brief exchange, he declined to speak further.

In some cases, a physician’s National Provider Identifier — the unique number assigned to every healthcare provider in the country — has been used without the physician’s knowledge by hospice companies seeking to certify, and be reimbursed for, patients the doctor has never examined, according to California state auditors.

The data shows Bhuva’s national identifier was tied to the one of the largest volumes of Medicare hospice reimbursements in California in 2024. The data does not establish whether Bhuva personally authorized the claims, whether his credentials were used without his consent, or whether there is another explanation.

They would have a superhuman schedule to do that in a meaningful way.
-Dr. Kristina Newport, chief medical officer at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine

CBS News found Bhuva’s name among the physicians billing Medicare at several hospices that lost their Medicare certification for what regulators called an “abuse of billing” — a pattern of submitting improper claims. Those hospices were banned from Medicare for a 10-year period.

California state auditors say that anytime records show a doctor working for more than three hospice providers at one time, it could be a hallmark of fraud and prompts reasonable questions about “whether they are actually participating in the operations of those hospices.” More than 600 doctors exceed that threshold in California, according to Medicare data obtained and analyzed by CBS News.

On paper, those 600 doctors appear to be both incredibly busy — and profitable to the businesses they serve. While they accounted for roughly 7% of California’s hospice physicians, they generated more than half of the state’s $4.2 billion in Medicare hospice reimbursements in 2024, the last full year of data available.

In state and federal records, certain names stand out. The ten busiest hospice doctors — those whose names are linked to the most operators in California — generated more in Medicare reimbursements than 90% of their peers in 2024.

Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revoked the Medicare enrollment of another California doctor, dermatologist Dr. Fariba Javaherian. An agency spokesperson said CMS took action to stop paying providers with which she was closely affiliated. She told the California Post she was a victim of fraud and her physician identifier had been stolen.

The search for Dr. Bhuva
Bhuva, 55, earned his medical degree from St. Georges University in Grenada and completed his residency at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, according to his WebMD profile.

In records reviewed by CBS News, Bhuva’s name is listed as certifying terminally ill patients across scores of hospice facilities in 2024, generating a total of $71.7 million in Medicare reimbursements — among the highest in California.

The only California hospice physician with a higher Medicare reimbursement total in recent years was Dr. Domingo Barrientos, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud in 2024 and is currently serving a federal prison sentence.

According to Medicare data, the average California hospice physician cares for roughly 140 patients annually. In 2024, Bhuva certified 2,791 patients as terminally ill — approximately 20 times the state average.

Working with thousands of patients or 126 hospices is not against California law, but hospice industry leaders say the numbers associated with Bhuva’s workload are difficult to explain.

“There’s no reason to think that that’s legitimate,” Newport said.

Offices for the hospice providers affiliated with Bhuva stretch across the LA basin, from the foothills east of Pasadena to the San Fernando Valley and beyond.

According to federal Medicare data, for the first three quarters of 2025, Bhuva generated reimbursements of more than $5 million for claims through Physicians Preferred Hospice in Tarzana, California. When the CBS News team visited the location in March 2026, a person who identified himself as the director of nursing said Bhuva no longer works there. He said he could not say when Bhuva left.

Comfortzone Hospice, another company where Bhuva billed Medicare for 70 patients in January last year, is located in a building patient advocates call “ground zero” for hospice fraud. The Merabi Professional Medical Plaza, a three-story, 32,000 square foot stucco and glass office building in Los Angeles, is home to a salon, a law office, a modeling agency, a realty corporation and 89 licensed hospice companies, including the one connected to Bhuva. The only number listed for Comfortzone Hospice is disconnected.

The owner of West Gate Hospice in Van Nuys also told CBS News Bhuva no longer worked with them, but said he couldn’t say when Bhuva left. Records show Bhuva billed Medicare for 66 patients there in one month. The owner told CBS News there’s “no way” those numbers could be accurate because West Gate has never had that many patients in one month.

Personnel at Trilogy Hospice in Van Nuys, where Bhuva is currently listed as medical director in state records, told CBS News they didn’t want to talk and shut the door.

After this report was first published, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, posted on X: “Can confirm Dr. Bhuva had his ability to bill Medicare revoked this past March. To all the fraudsters out there stealing from our seniors: run, don’t walk. Because we’re coming after you.”

Bhuva is not currently on the Office of Inspector General’s “exclusion list” that is published online, which means his provider number can still be used to attempt to file Medicare claims.