A Medicaid-funded home care agency based in Portland was ordered to pay back nearly $400,000 in over-billed MaineCare payments in late 2024 after it failed to provide a variety of required documents despite multiple deadline extensions.
In the subsequent year, 5 Stars Home Health Care President Mostafa Alahmedi failed to provide documents that would substantiate hundreds of thousands of dollars in MaineCare benefits paid out for “home-based care.”
All told, Alahmedi received more than $1 million in taxpayer-funded payments before the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) shutoff the money spigot.
Those MaineCare payments include $432,384.72 paid out to Alahmedi in 2024 while 5 Stars Home Health Care was suspected of billing in the previous years with an error rate of more than 65 percent. The home health care agency was administratively dissolved in Nov. 2024, just two months before DHHS turned off the MaineCare money spigot in Feb. 2025.
Whether Alahmedi ever paid back a dime to DHHS is unclear.
DHHS records related to his Notice of Violation show no evidence of repayment.
There’s no record of Alahmedi being criminally investigated or charged with a crime.
The company — which used a mailing address in the Westbrooke Point low-income tax credit housing complex — is now defunct, according to Secretary of State records.
5 Stars Fraud?
The story of 5 Stars Home Health Care (also sometimes listed as 5 Star Home Health Care and 5 Star Home Care) is illustrative of DHHS’s relaxed attitude toward some MaineCare agencies that have been caught over-billing taxpayers.
According to Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) records obtained by the Maine Wire via a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request, auditors with the Office of MaineCare Services determined that the state had overpaid 5 Stars by $390,672.79 between November 1, 2021, and October 31, 2023.
The records show that despite facing questions over the legitimacy of his 2022 and 2023 billing, DHHS continued to pay Alahmedi more than $432,000 through 2024. The payments only stopped flowing in Feb. 2025 after the MaineCare entrepreneur failed to turn over records despite multiple extensions.
DHHS documents show Alahmedi was paid more than $1 million from 2022 to 2024, but they do not show whether he was ever forced to repay the $390,672.79.
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Documents reveal that Alahmedi failed to provide the required records on alleged home-care visits for which he billed MaineCare, and repeatedly asked for extensions on the deadline for document submission, before eventually ignoring auditors for months.
Out of 408 billed claims reviewed by auditors, they identified 132 instances where documents to support that the services actually took place were not submitted, and 26 instances where assessments, plans of care, and progress notes were not submitted.
Auditors also found 276 instances when 5-Star failed to submit the required documents on employee schedules and timesheets.
The audit even revealed three instances where an alleged home care visit predated the hiring of the employee who supposedly provided the service.
Alahmedi’s troubles began on January 2, 2024, when Melissa Beatrice from MaineCare’s “Program Integrity Unit” reached out, asking him to clarify which of the two mailing addresses they had on record for his business—75 Bishop Street, #12 A, Portland, or 18 Teri Cir, Apartment 188, Westbrook—was correct.
That request was apparently too much for Alahmedi, who failed to respond for 28 days until January 30. In his eventual response, he failed to clarify his mailing address and instead asked for more time to submit the required documents he had not provided.
“Hello this is Mostafa Alahmedi from 5 Stars Home Health care I am reaching out because I am trying to get more time for the paperwork that was requested from me because I had a lot going on this month my son is sick and we took him 2 times to the emergency so let me know if I can get more time please thank you [sic],” said Alahmedi.
Beatrice granted Alahmedi a 30-day extension, pushing the deadline for him to submit the required documents back to February 29.
It is not clear from records whether Alahmedi spoke with auditors over the phone or whether they deduced his address in some other way, but records indicate that auditors were later able to send him mail using the Portland address, where 5 Stars rent a one-room office suite, despite his apparent disregard for their email request.
On February 28, one day before his extended deadline was set to expire, Alahmedi reached out to auditors again, asking for another extension. This time he claimed he was unable to send the records because his entire family had COVID-19 and he had been in the hospital.
“I am really sorry about this but all our family are sick with COVID-19 and I am too my son and my wife and everyone in the family and I was in the hospital and I couldn’t send any of the paperwork that was requested please give me at least another 2 weeks [sic],” said Alahmedi.
Alahmedi received another extension until March 22. On that day, Alahmedi informed auditors that he had mailed some of the required records, but that he would need a third extension to send all of them.
Beatrice granted a two-week extension for the remaining paperwork but warned him that she could not extend the deadline any further.
After the first portion of the paperwork arrived in early April, Beatrice warned Alahmedi that vital information was missing from it, including a certificate of authenticity and employee timesheets.
Alahmedi then went silent for months, failing to send any additional paperwork or respond to Beatrice until late June, when he received a notice of his failure to provide records. He reached out to Beatrice and claimed that the records had been sent, though the Office of Program Integrity received no additional documents.
Based on FOAA records, it appears that Alahmedi entirely stopped communicating with auditors at that point and was eventually sent a formal notice of violation on November 27, 2024, ordering him to pay back the $390,672.
In February 2025, Beatrice emailed Program Integrity Manager Valerie Hooper, requesting that the case be closed, an action that would effectively end 5 Stars Home Health Care since its only stream of income came from MaineCare.
Hooper confirmed the case’s closure and allowed it to be sent to “Receivables,” though it is not clear from the records whether Receivables ever actually recovered the money from Alahmedi.
According to records reviewed by The Maine Wire, Alahmedi received a total of $1,024,718 in Medicaid payments from 2022 to 2024.
State licensing records strangely reveal that 5-Star allegedly received an “on-site” inspection on April 16, 2025, after Alahmedi’s audit, which found no deficiencies.
Despite the alleged lack of deficiencies, records also show that Alahmedi’s license to operate a personal care agency expired on October 18.
The Maine Wire recently visited 5 Star Home Health Care’s office on Bishop Street in Portland and found their sign still on the office door.
The agency was just one of many seemingly suspicious home care businesses operating out of the Bishop Street address.
The Maine Wire attempted to get in contact with Alahmedi and called the phone number listed on the agency’s state licensing page, but the number appears to have been disconnected and is not accepting calls.
He does not appear to have a social media presence either, except for a nearly blank LinkedIn page that lists him as the owner of “5 Stars Home Care” and claims that he lives in Windham.
