AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - The federal government has ordered Maine to repay $51 million spent on Riverview Psychiatric Hospital since it lost certification, a decision the governor likened Thursday to a “financial tsunami.”
Republican Gov. Paul LePage vowed to appeal the decision. He blamed lawmakers for continuing to spend federal funds despite concerns raised since the hospital was decertified in 2013. He said he expects the Legislature to “take responsibility for its missteps” and to allocate money to make up the difference.
“Our administration warned the Legislature over and over that action needed to be taken and those warnings were ignored. Now, we are faced with a financial tsunami,” LePage said.
The state has 60 days to appeal the decision by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Richard McGreal, associate regional administrator, wrote in a Wednesday letter.
The money the state must return came from a period dating to Oct. 1, 2013.
Rep. Deb Sanderson, the ranking House Republican on the Health and Human Services Committee, accused Democrats of using Riverview as a “political weapon” and of ignoring repeated warnings from former Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew.
“This all could have been avoided if Democrats cared about solving problems as much as they care about playing political games to poke the governor in the eye,” she said.
House Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, Rep. Patricia Hymanson, said in a statement that LePage and Mayhew “have spent four years refusing to take all the necessary actions to rectify mismanagement of the Riverview facility.” Hymanson, a doctor, said until officials address capacity issues that prevent the facility from accepting people in crisis and its ability to move stable patients to appropriate residential facilities, it will remain decertified.
The federal agency decertified Riverview after inspections found stun guns and handcuffs were used on patients. Later inspections found more problems that included medication errors and paperwork problems.
Maine has been working to regain certification of Riverview but a federal judge ruled in 2015 that the state missed the deadline for appealing that decision.
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