MD+DI Features Paul Werner in Q&A on DOJ West Coast Health Care Fraud Strike Force

Paul Werner’s insights on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) latest crackdown on healthcare fraud were featured in MD+DI (Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry).

In a Q&A-style interview published May 14, Werner discusses the DOJ’s new West Coast Health Care Fraud Strike Force, a multi-district enforcement initiative uniting the Division’s Health Care Fraud Section with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the District of Arizona, District of Nevada, and Northern District of California.

“Healthcare ‘fraud’ recoveries continue to be at the top of the heap year over year in terms of how much DOJ recovers, both civilly and criminally. And this makes sense given government spending,” Werner tells MD+DI. “The approximately $1.1 trillion spend on healthcare in 2024 and 2025 eclipsed national defense spending by several hundred million dollars.”

Werner says the West Coast strike force will likely place a heavy focus on technology-related fraud.

“That could be anything from digital marketing schemes to AI driven upcoding and documentation cloning investigations. It could even get into issues involving investigations of back-end audit log or meta data manipulation in an effort to cover up fraud during the course of an investigation. I have also seen indications that there may be renewed interest in enforcement actions relative to overutilization (or simply misuse) of remote patient monitoring systems.”

Werner adds: “I am also confident that the strike force will apply significant enforcement tools in the area of behavioral health and sober living. This has already been a target area in the relevant districts, and the existence of a strike force will only increase the level of scrutiny. California, in particular, has always been a hotbed of (alleged) abuses in that area.”

The full Q&A can be read at MD+DI.

• Posted on: May 20 2026