Bronx, New York — When President Trump nominated nursing home magnate Benjamin Landa as ambassador to Hungary last October, it looked like a straightforward reward for a loyal donor. One month earlier, Landa had cut a $5 million check to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC. Two months later, he had a nomination letter from the White House.
What followed was considerably more complicated.
Within weeks of the nomination, the inspector general of Trump’s own Department of Health and Human Services issued an audit finding that a Bronx nursing home Landa co-owns — Pinnacle Multicare Nursing and Rehabilitation Center — received at least $31.2 million in Medicare overpayments. The report recommended the government claw that money back.
Now Pinnacle is suing the very administration that’s nominating Landa for the diplomatic post. The lawsuit, filed February 26 in federal district court in New York, names HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, HHS Inspector General Thomas March Bell, and a Medicare contractor as defendants. A federal judge has already denied Pinnacle’s request to pause the collection effort.
What the Audit Found
The OIG’s audit was the first review tied to a new Medicare payment system CMS rolled out during Trump’s first term — one designed to shift reimbursements away from therapy volume and toward patient need. Investigators found that Pinnacle violated CMS billing requirements in 99 of the 100 claims they examined.
In 95 of those 99 cases, the facility billed for higher care levels than patients’ charts could justify. Inspectors found examples like billing for speech therapy for a patient whose own clinicians noted did not need speech therapy, and charging for wheelchair training for patients who could walk on their own.
An attorney for Landa pushed back, saying the disputed billing decisions were made during the height of COVID-19 when nursing homes faced extraordinary pressure. “This is about decisive actions taken during the pandemic that prioritized patients and saved lives,” attorney Alyssa Friedman said in a statement. “Decisions now being second-guessed years later through an absurdly flawed audit of billing paperwork and a retroactive reinterpretation of the rules.”
A Pattern Critics Say Deserves Scrutiny
The Pinnacle lawsuit isn’t the first time Landa’s nursing home portfolio has drawn scrutiny. According to industry reports, he holds an ownership interest in more than 100 nursing homes across eight states.
In November 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Landa and others connected to two separate nursing homes — The Villages at Orleans Health and Rehabilitation Center and Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on Long Island — alleging financial fraud, resident neglect, and what James described as the “looting” of facilities through management fees and rent payments. Meanwhile, residents allegedly suffered from understaffing, malnutrition, and preventable injuries. Landa’s attorney denied wrongdoing in both cases, saying he was a landlord with no operational role.
Cold Spring Hills ultimately filed for bankruptcy in January 2025 and sold for $10 to a third-party receiver. The appeals are still pending.
A staffing agency Landa co-owned was also sued on behalf of Filipino nurses, with a federal court finding violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The case settled for $3 million in 2022.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, didn’t hold back. “Giant corporate health care interests that prey on the vulnerable and use clever tricks to exploit loopholes at taxpayers’ expense,” he said. “It’s no surprise that these companies and their owners are cozy with Trump — instead of accountability, they’ve been rewarded with plum political appointments.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the status of Landa’s nomination.
The conflict puts nursing home accountability squarely in the political spotlight at a moment when the industry is already under heightened federal pressure. It’s not the first time the intersection of Medicare billing enforcement and nursing home operators has made its way into court — but the ambassador angle adds a dimension few industry cases carry.
