House hearing on fraud set the stage, but CRUSH went much further. The February 3, 2026 House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations hearing, “Common Schemes, Real Harm,” was a broad oversight hearing on Medicare and Medicaid fraud, not a narrowly targeted session on one program or one billing category. The committee memo [see web page, link above] framed the issue in large terms: billions lost annually, rising sophistication, transnational actors, and harm to beneficiaries when fraudulent claims distort access to legitimate care. The witness panel reflected that breadth: a private-sector fraud investigator, the head of the Medicaid Fraud Control Units association, an ACO executive, and a law professor focused on oversight design. (House Committee on Energy and Commerce)
What the hearing emphasized was the familiar “pay-and-chase” problem: Medicare and Medicaid often pay first and sort out fraud later. The hearing repeatedly returned to beneficiary harm, weak front-end screening, fragmented oversight, and the difficulty of pursuing bad actors who exploit state-by-state variation or opaque ownership structures. It also had a distinctly political overlay, because several members tied the discussion to the Minnesota Medicaid controversy and to broader concerns about how fraud allegations were being used in contemporary oversight fights.
On DME fraud, the answer is plainly yes: the hearing did discuss it, and in some depth. The committee memo highlighted Operation Gold Rush and the massive urinary-catheter DME scheme as a major example of modern Medicare fraud. In the hearing itself, the chair’s opening statement pointed to recent large fraud cases, and the ACO witness focused heavily on DME as an ongoing source of patient harm, including cases where fraudulent claims could block legitimate diabetic shoes or other medically necessary items. Jessica Gay’s written testimony also treated DME as a recurring fraud vector, listing catheters, orthotics, and other supplies among the common schemes she sees. In practical terms, DME was one of the hearing’s clearest and most sustained Medicare examples.
On genomic or genetic testing fraud, the answer is also yes, but it was less central than DME. The chair’s opening statement explicitly cited a Florida laboratory owner who had pleaded guilty in a scheme involving medically unnecessary genetic tests billed to Medicare beneficiaries.
The committee memo also identified genetic and clinical laboratory testing as one of HHS-OIG’s recognized high-risk areas. And Jessica Gay’s written testimony contained a dedicated laboratory section listing genetic testing among the lab-fraud patterns she sees, including large panels not used in patient care, telemarketing-based solicitation, absent physician orders, duplicate billing, and unbundling. So the hearing did reach genomic/genetic test fraud, but mostly as one example within a larger fraud landscape, not as a standalone policy deep dive.
- See Gay [Integrity Solutions LLC], page 6, noting "genetic testing, drug screening, respiratory panels, COVID testing," including "large panel genetic testing not needed or leveraged in patient care."
MolDx is where the line between the hearing and CRUSH becomes sharp. In the hearing materials you uploaded, I found discussion of genetic-test fraud and DME, but I did not find a mention of MolDx in the committee memo, witness statements, or transcript.
By contrast, the later CRUSH RFI explicitly raised the MolDX Program and asked whether registration in MolDx has affected fraud risk and why some payors and Medicare Advantage organizations require MolDx registration even outside MolDx states. That makes MolDx look like a CRUSH-era CMS policy question, not a theme that had already been aired in any substantial way at the February 3 House hearing. (Federal Register)
CRUSH itself, unveiled at the end of February, was broader and more operational than the hearing. CMS announced a major anti-fraud crackdown on February 25, 2026, paired with the formal CRUSH RFI published in the Federal Register on February 27, 2026. CMS described CRUSH as a vehicle for both a possible future rule and other programmatic changes. The official comment deadline in the Federal Register was March 30, 2026. Alongside the RFI, CMS also announced a six-month nationwide moratorium on new enrollment for certain DMEPOS suppliers and said it would publish revocation information for providers and suppliers. (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
The CRUSH program had several major arms. At a high level, it asked for input on stronger general program-integrity tools; enhanced identity proofing and tighter ownership rules, including possible citizenship or legal-residency requirements for owners; improvements to the preclusion list and possible Traditional Medicare enrollment requirements for Medicare Advantage billing; specific anti-fraud measures for laboratory/genetic/molecular testing; specific anti-fraud measures for non-participating DMEPOS suppliers in Medicare Advantage; shorter claim-filing deadlines for high-risk claims; use of AI in coding and billing oversight; possible surety bond changes; expanded Medicaid/CHIP fraud authorities; and fraud controls in the federally facilitated and state-based exchanges. In other words, the hearing was a broad diagnosis, while CRUSH was the beginnings of a regulatory toolbox. (Federal Register)
The overlap between the hearing and CRUSH is real but incomplete. Both were concerned with beneficiary harm, not just bookkeeping loss. Both emphasized prevention over pay-and-chase, and both clearly treated DME as a major live fraud area. Both also reflected anxiety about bad actors exploiting fragmented oversight and, at least in CMS’s framing, opaque ownership structures and cross-border arrangements.
But CRUSH went beyond the hearing in several ways: it moved into detailed Medicare Advantage mechanics, explicit laboratory-policy questions, explicit MolDx questions, state Medicaid enforcement design, exchange fraud, and the possible use of AI and new administrative levers. The House hearing sketched the problem; CRUSH began to sketch the machinery. (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
Bottom line for your specific question: the February 3 House hearing did discuss DME fraud clearly and repeatedly; it did mention genetic/genomic laboratory fraud, though more briefly; and it did not, in the materials I reviewed, mention MolDx. The explicit MolDx discussion appears in CRUSH, where CMS directly asked whether MolDx registration may reduce fraud risk in lab testing and why payors rely on it outside MolDx jurisdictions. That is probably the cleanest dividing line between the two. (Federal Register)
