What looked like a faith-based outreach on Aurora’s east side has now drawn the attention of church brass and government fraud investigators. An Aurora congregation and a connected home-health operation that recruited people experiencing homelessness into a Medicaid-funded program are under scrutiny after local reporting triggered a state response and internal church reviews.
A Denver Gazette investigation detailed how the enterprise, known to participants as “The Program,” pulled in dozens of unhoused people and moved them into rent-free houses scattered across eastern Aurora. Once enrolled with Ongoing Home Health Care, the participants were part of a billing surge that saw the agency charge Health First Colorado more than $24 million after a rapid spike in claims. Several participants told reporters they were paid $50 three times a week, about $150, and at times were offered referral bonuses up to $500 to take prescribed medications and allow staff to administer them, according to The Denver Gazette.
Colorado’s Medicaid agency, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, notified On Going HHC that it was suspending the company from receiving additional Medicaid payments while investigators review what officials called “credible allegations of fraud.” That includes claims of billing for services that were never provided, Colorado Politics reported. State officials flagged an exponential jump in reimbursements that raised red flags and could draw federal partners into the probe.
Two regional Seventh-day Adventist bodies, the Rocky Mountain Conference and the Central States Conference, say they have opened internal reviews after reporting tied the Maranatha Indonesian-American Seventh-day Adventist Church in Aurora to the Medicaid operation. The church was incorporated in 2024 and has a delinquent state filing, and sources familiar with the program say the app and gift-card payments to participants have stopped, according to The Denver Gazette. State and federal investigators, including the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the FBI, are reported to be involved.
How the program allegedly worked
Participants told reporters they were routinely taken to the same Aurora clinic for brief exams with Dr. Arthur Ferrer, then prescribed medications and placed on plans of care that allowed On Going HHC to bill Medicaid for ongoing medication-management visits. Reporting indicates the operation relied on a web of related business and nonprofit entities, including a housing coordinator called Better Living, to run about half a dozen homes where residents received nurse visits and what organizers described as “donations” that helped keep them in the program, according to Colorado Politics.
What regulators can do
Under Colorado law, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing can suspend a Medicaid provider when evidence points to organized fraud. House Bill 24-1146 gives the agency added tools to pause payments when billing spikes appear to show abuse. Federal guidance from the HHS Office of Inspector General also warns that offering cash, gift cards, or similar incentives to Medicaid beneficiaries to steer their choice of provider can trigger civil monetary penalties or even criminal exposure. The department says it refers credible fraud allegations to law enforcement.
House Bill 24-1146, published by the Colorado General Assembly, and a policy statement from the HHS Office of Inspector General spell out the enforcement tools regulators can use in cases like this.
Voices and next steps
Former participants say the benefits came with strings attached. They described being pushed to sign nondisclosure agreements, discouraged from taking jobs and warned they could be evicted if they talked about the arrangement, according to reporting in SPECTRUM Magazine. Those accounts surfaced as state investigators began closing in.
With On Going HHC blocked from receiving new Medicaid payments while the investigations continue, the Seventh-day Adventist conferences and state agencies say they will press ahead with their reviews and share what they can as the case unfolds.
