A home health care business with ties to the infamous alleged fraud front Gateway Community Services faced an audit with initial recoupment demands of over $600,000 before changing its name a year later.
[RELATED: Global Home Care Overbilled Medicaid by Nearly $100k While Raking in Millions in Taxpayer Funding…]
Adam HealthCare Services received $1,201,462 in taxpayer Medicaid funds from 2019 to 2020, according to payment records obtained via a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request.
According to business records on OpenCorporates, the Medicaid recipient, operated by Ferdus Awali, rebranded as Quality Care LLC in December 2023. Those records place their head office at 124 Canal Street, the same address that houses Gateway Community Services’ Lewiston location.
Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) suspended Medicaid payments to Gateway in December amid fraud allegations and audit findings showing that the Somali-run nonprofit overbilled the taxpayer-funded program by over $1 million.
Medicaid billing records for Quality Care show that, from 2020-2024, it received $1,282,028. Records show it billing the taxpayer program beginning in 2020, concurrently with Adam HealthCare’s billing, and before business records show Adam HealthCare changed its name.
Aside from her business’ billing, Awali billed MaineCare over $202,283 from 2019-2024 as an individual healthcare provider. Those individual billings followed a strange pattern; she billed $21,597 in 2019, nothing in 2020 or 2021, and just $5,695 in 2022. Suddenly, in 2023, she billed $111,607, a 1,859 percent increase in billing from 2022-2023. In 2024, she billed $63,382.17.
Though payment records obtained by The Maine Wire only show Medicaid payments through 2024, there is no indication that she stopped billing after that year.
The walls may be closing in on Awali, however, with agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) attempting to serve papers at Gateway’s Canal Street address shared by Quality Care as part of an investigation into Medicaid fraud in the state.
In addition to its ties to Gateway, Adam Healthcare also has links to a Lewiston address that primarily houses money transfer stations for remitting funds to foreign nations, a common thread among the home care agencies investigated by The Maine Wire.
Audit Findings
According to MaineCare audit records obtained via FOAA, auditors reviewed Adam HealthCare’s Medicaid billing from the start of 2018 through the end of 2019 and found that the company overbilled the taxpayer-funded program by $647,834.
MaineCare determined that the company failed to provide proper documents to support billing, including documents on the qualifications of caregivers and timesheet records for the services supposedly performed.
Auditors first informed the company’s registered agent, Awali, that Adam HealthCare would be required to repay the funds in February 2022.
According to state licensing records, Awali became a licensed personal support specialist in 2017 and a registered nurse in 2013.
MaineCare records show that, aside from the substantial billing from Ferdus’ company, she billed Medicaid
Audit records show that, prior to that initial recoupment request, auditors seemingly requested additional documentation from Awali, who then mailed them a flash drive in September 2020.
MaineCare Program Integrity Officer Bruce St. Amand then plugged the flash drive into his work computer, apparently unaware of the significant security risks associated with inserting a flash drive provided by an unvetted source into a state computer.
The drive seemingly did not work, and there is a gap of over a year between email records discussing the flash drive and the eventual recoupment request.
Awali contested the recoupment request, promising to provide additional files.
In an email to auditors, Awali claimed that she could not properly read the notice of violation because she had broken her reading “classes [sic]” and asked to have information sent to her via “confidential email.”
“I could not clearly read the excel paper especially the ‘PI Comment’ column’. I broke reading classes! [sic] Would you be able to send it confidentially through email, please? I truly appreciate the fact that you had done the audit. It is only making me a better provider if I choose to continue this path. I’m glad that I got the result while I’m here because I can address these issues,” said Awali.
After an email exchange, Awali mailed another flash drive, which the auditors received on April 25, 2022. This drive seemingly functioned correctly and contained records.
“No matter what the outcome of the audit was or will be, I truly want to thank you for performing the audits. It assured me with better organization, I can go far with this type of work even though it is difficult to run it with my current situation,” said Awali in an email shortly after mailing the flash-drive.
On November 7, 2022, auditors revised their recoupment request down to just $25,848.61.
Audit files do not reveal whether Awali’s company ever paid back the money.
Business Details
It is not clear where Adam HealthCare/Quality Care is actually based, if they even have a true base of operations, because licensing records, business records, audit records, and Medicaid records all provide different addresses.
Audit records show that mail sent to the healthcare operation was delivered to 800 Sturtevant Hill Road in Winthrop. That address appears more likely to be Awali’s home than a business office. According to Zillow, it is a single-family home.
OpenCorporates shows that Awali also served as the registered agent for six now-inactive registered businesses and non-profits, including Adam Books and Design, headquartered at the Sturtevant Hill address.
Further complicating matters, business records from Bizpedia reveal the existence of an Adam HealthCare Services led by Ahmed Adam, who appears to be Awali’s husband. Adam was listed as living at the Sturtevant Hill address, with the business’s address at 284 Lisbon Street.
Records show that the business formed in 2015 and dissolved in 2021, before Awali first received her notice of violation, after failing to file an annual report.
Awali’s email signature—visible in audit records—listed the business’s address as 277 Lisbon Street, which matches the address shown in Medicaid payment records, rather than the 284 Lisbon Street address associated with the defunct business operated by Adam.
The building at 277 Lisbon Street appears to house apartments, along with a Carhartt store and a vape shop.
Awali’s current endeavor, Quality Care, is a rebrand of Adam Healthcare, based on OpenCorporates records.
While “Adam Healthcare” on business records differs slightly from the name of the audited “Adam HealthCare Services,” the businesses appear to be the same. In audit records, Awali’s email signature read “Adam Healthcare,” indicating that the names are interchangeable.
Other audited homecare businesses investigated by The Maine Wire have had similar variations in their names across different records.
MaineCare records show that Quality Care drew in $1,282,028 from 2020 to 2024. Oddly, the company is listed as drawing in funding concurrently with Adam Healthcare in 2020. It is not clear why that would be the case, given that Quality Care seems to be a rebranded version of Adam Healthcare.
Taken together, Quality Care and Adam Healthcare drew a whopping $2,483,490 in MaineCare funding from 2019 to 2024. That number increases to $2,685,773 when Awali’s billing as an individual provider is factored in.
Licensing records for Quality Care list 124 Lisbon Street, Lewiston, as the business address.
Typically, licensing records for home healthcare providers list the date of the most recent “on-site” inspection and the results of that inspection, but there is no data to indicate that Quality Care has ever actually been inspected.
124 Lisbon Street appears to be an office building with exterior signs indicating that it houses the New Mainers Public Health Initiative, a non-profit headed by Hibo Omer that received $1,130,150 in Medicaid funds from 2019 to 2024.
There is no exterior indication that the building actually houses Quality Care.
The 124 Lisbon Street address also differs from Quality Care’s mailing address, listed as 247 Lisbon Street in Lewiston, in both business and Medicaid records.
The Maine Wire visited 247 Lisbon Street, and it appeared to be primarily dedicated to facilitating foreign money transfers.
There is no way to determine how much, if any, of the funds Quality Care/Adam Healthcare obtained from taxpayers via Medicaid was remitted using the various money transfer options available at the address.
The address also houses another Medicaid recipient, Ladna Home Care, which drew $2,335,701 in Medicaid funding from 2022 to 2024.
Licensing records show that Ladna Home Care is headed by Rashid Shankol. It failed an October 2025 “on-site” inspection when licensing inspectors found that it did not keep records of the services provided to its clients.
Next door to 247 Lisbon Street, the Dayah Store at 243 Lisbon Street houses a Taaj Money Transfer. According to Taaj’s website, it was founded by a Somali businessman, is licensed by the Central Bank of Somalia, and is the leading provider of money remittance services to Somalia.
Despite the multiple inconsistencies with Quality Care/Adam Healthcare’s name and address, its failed audit, and its suspicious links to money remittance stations, perhaps the most concerning aspect is its link to the allegedly fraudulent Gateway Community Services.
Gateway Community Services CEO Abdullahi Ali is a Maine Democratic insider who mounted a failed election bid for the presidency of Jubbaland, Somalia.
In late December, the state finally cut off Gateway’s ability to bill Medicaid for services after an audit found that they overbilled the program by more than $1 million.
The shady organization also has ties to Somali-born Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland), who previously served as its deputy executive director, and Rep. Yusuf Yusuf (D-Portland), who runs his own home care businesses, drawing millions in Medicaid funds.
Despite the mountain of evidence continuing to emerge suggesting a vast, interlinked network of fraudulent businesses profiting off of Maine taxpayers, Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) has maintained that there is no widespread fraud problem in the state.
In her March 6 response to a request for information from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, Mills claimed that the majority of Medicaid overbilling found by auditors is the result of “good-faith errors in documentation,” rather than fraud.
Mills has vowed that the state works to “hold fraudsters accountable,” all while the state continues to hand out millions to health-care businesses that fail audits, and face minimal scrutiny from the state.
Anyone going to jail? This is just the tip of the iceberg.
As long as the democrats control, the grift will continue