{"id":5751,"date":"2026-07-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=5751"},"modified":"2026-07-07T14:50:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T19:50:45","slug":"doj-takedown-exposes-over-220-million-defrauded-in-behavioral-mental-health-fraud-schemes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2026\/07\/13\/doj-takedown-exposes-over-220-million-defrauded-in-behavioral-mental-health-fraud-schemes\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Takedown Exposes Over $220 Million Defrauded in Behavioral Mental Health Fraud Schemes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thirty-seven mental health, psychiatric, behavioral health, and substance abuse cases reveal alleged false claims, falsified records, kickbacks, and phantom services\u2014patients harmed while providers pocketed luxury gains.<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Jan Eastgate<\/a>
President, CCHR International
July 6, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Department of Justice\u2019s 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown has exposed rampant fraud in mental health, behavioral health, psychiatric, and substance abuse services. As part of a nationwide operation uncovering over $6.5 billion in alleged fraud, 37 cases in these areas represent well over $220\u2013250 million in defrauded funds<\/a>. These scandals highlight deep systemic failures in the psychiatric and behavioral health industry, where profit-driven motives put vulnerable patients at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychiatric and behavioral health providers repeatedly billed government programs\u2014primarily Medicaid\u2014for services never provided, substandard care, treatment by unqualified staff, and inducing beneficiaries to sign for services they barely or never received. In some cases, providers billed for counseling, therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), or other services on dates when the supposed professionals were out of the country. A number of the schemes the DOJ uncovered<\/a> involved professionals using defrauded funds for luxury purchases, including real estate, vehicles, jewelry, and a yacht.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery fraudulent dollar diverted into a criminal scheme is a dollar unavailable for patient care, for medical innovation, or for services for vulnerable Americans,\u201d said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full CCHR report here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a nonprofit mental health watchdog, CCHR St. Louis relies on memberships and donations to carry out its mission. To become part of the world\u2019s largest movement for mental health change, join the group that has helped enact more than 180 laws protecting citizens from abusive psychiatric practices.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty-seven mental health, psychiatric, behavioral health, and substance abuse cases reveal alleged false claims, falsified records, kickbacks, and phantom services\u2014patients harmed while providers pocketed luxury gains. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Thirty-seven mental health, psychiatric, behavioral health, and substance abuse cases reveal alleged false claims, falsified records, kickbacks, and phantom services\u2014patients harmed while providers pocketed luxury gains.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[28,240],"class_list":["post-5751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","tag-fraud","tag-us-doj"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-1uL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5767,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5751\/revisions\/5767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}