Staff Reports
The new bombshell in Minnesota comes not from a grand jury or a whistleblower with a badge — it comes from a former therapist on a local podcast. Grant Morgan, who worked inside the state’s EIDBI autism program, went on the record saying two providers—Milestone Development Center and Spectrum Therapy Center—showed “red flags” that suggested billing fraud and poor clinical oversight. The Minnesota Department of Human Services now confirms both centers are under investigation and were removed from Medicaid participation during the state’s Revalidate 2026 process. This is the kind of story that should make every parent, taxpayer, and voter sit up straight.
What the whistleblower said
Grant Morgan’s interview is the immediate news here. He said plainly: “I was never asked to write a session note while working there,” and that he “saw red flags as far as the possibility that there may have been billing fraud going on.” Those are not vague hints — they are operational problems that speak to how the centers were run. Morgan also described a lack of qualified supervision, saying he saw no QSP or BCBA oversight at Milestone while he worked there. For any parent who trusts a center with their child, that raises alarm bells — and for auditors, it raises invoices to check.
DHS confirms investigations and Medicaid action
The Department of Human Services told reporters that “these agencies are on our radar” and confirmed investigators are looking into Milestone and Spectrum. DHS also said both providers were removed from Medicaid participation during Revalidate 2026 and have appealed those terminations. That’s an important detail: removal from the Medicaid rolls is an enforcement step, not idle gossip. It means state officials found enough procedural issues to cut payments until the record gets cleared up. Appeals are routine, but they don’t erase the fact that the state stepped in.
Political ties, public trust, and practical consequences
Here’s where the optics get ugly. Milestone’s CEO, Nimco Ahmed, publicly has been described as a longtime friend of Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan — who is now running for the U.S. Senate. Ahmed denied the allegations and called questions about her center “bias,” which is the standard reply when you want people to stop asking. But voters don’t care about friendship tweets; they care about whether children got proper care and whether taxpayer money was billed correctly. If oversight was weak and billing exploded — as many reports have shown EIDBI spending did — the political fallout will follow the facts, not the photo ops.
What Minnesotans should demand
Ask for the records, and keep asking. DHS should be transparent about process where it can be, auditors should follow every dollar, and federal investigators should weigh in if Medicaid rules were broken. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan should answer plainly about what she knew and when — association with a person under investigation isn’t a crime, but it is a matter of judgment. Families deserve better than sputtering denials; taxpayers deserve better than runaway spending. This episode is a reminder that when a program grows fast, oversight must grow faster.
