Feds charge South Portland personal care agency with healthcare fraud
The federal government has charged a South Portland personal care agency and several of its employees with healthcare fraud conspiracy related to Medicaid billing.
An indictment was unsealed Tuesday morning, laying out the government’s allegations against Community Home Health Care LLC, its owner and five employees.
According to the document, investigators determined that the company had billed MaineCare, the state’s program for Medicaid reimbursements, for services that weren’t actually rendered for one client. Federal prosecutors have also accused the defendants of engaging in a conspiracy to defraud MaineCare, beginning at an unknown time and running until August.
“The object of the conspiracy was a scheme to commit health care fraud through a scheme to defraud MaineCare,” the indictment states.
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Maine suspends payments to 5 providers amid Medicaid scrutiny from Trump team
Maine Community Home Health Care was one of five agencies that the state suspended Medicaid payments to in January, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Another Maine agency that has been temporarily barred from receiving Medicaid payments, Maine Connect Care, was included on a list of matters that the Office of the Maine Attorney General’s criminal division accidentally sent to members of the press earlier in October.
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That document indicated that Maine prosecutors were waiting to hear back from the U.S. Attorney’s Office about plans for pursuing criminal or civil charges against that company, as well as another behavioral health provider that DHHS has taken action against, following allegations of Medicaid misuse.
Defense attorneys for Maine Community Home Health Care could not immediately be reached Tuesday morning.
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2 Maine healthcare providers accused of violations by state
Federal prosecutors announced they will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Tuesday to “announce an indictment resulting in the arrests of six individuals and the disruption of an alleged long-running health care fraud scheme by a home health care agency in South Portland that is accused of defrauding MaineCare out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for services that were never provided.”
This is a developing story.
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Tagged: DHHS, healthcare, mainecare, medicaid, us district court
Emily Allen covers courts for the Portland Press Herald. It's her favorite beat so far — before moving to Maine in 2022, she reported on a wide range of topics for public radio in West Virginia and was. More by Emily Allen
