The nation’s top Medicaid official has a message for Maine: the jig is up.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz issued a pointed statement to The Maine Wire this week in response to reports that Paradise Residential Services LLC had become the latest multi-million dollar MaineCare scandal to unfold under the Mills Administration.
“The allegations coming out of Maine are deeply disturbing and underscore exactly what we’ve been warning about — bad actors are exploiting gaps in oversight to game the Medicaid system,” Oz said. “When providers bill inflated rates while failing to deliver basic standards of care, it’s not just fraud, it’s a betrayal of vulnerable patients and families who depend on these services.”
Oz’s comments came in response to an inquiry from The Robinson Report about the Maine Department of Health and Human Service’s decision to de-authorize Paradise Residential Services, LLC, a MaineCare provider that has billed taxpayers more than $16 million over the last five years.
According to Medicaid records, the Portland-area autism residential care company charged more than twice the national rate for identical services. Former employees have described a culture of neglect, billing manipulation, and insider self-dealing.
“There will be no more gaming the system — CMS is committed to rooting out fraud, protecting patients, and restoring integrity to these critical programs,” said Oz.
DHHS declined to comment on the story, citing pending litigation with Paradise.
Paradise declined a phone interview.
The Oz latest salvo lands after months of increasingly untenable denials from Augusta.
In late February, The Maine Wire revealed exclusively that Mills had quietly asked federal officials for extra time to comply with a Feb. 6 demand from CMS to respond to Medicaid fraud questions.
That request was rejected.
Mills responded by attacking the messenger. She ripped Oz publicly as a “TV Doctor,” accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the fraud investigation for political purposes, and put out a statement defending her oversight of the MaineCare program.
On March 7, her office said it had submitted a “detailed response” to the CMS inquiry.
The Trump administration, through the Vance-led anti-fraud task force and Oz’s CMS, has made Maine a test case.
Oz’s statement this week makes the federal posture plain. Maine’s Medicaid administrators may have spent months telling Washington nothing to see here.
Washington is no longer accepting that answer.
