Carlos Malaver Parada has been charged in Lewis and Clark County district court with two counts of Medicaid fraud, false claim to a public agency and tampering with or fabricating evidence, all felonies.
If convicted, the maximum penalty for Medicaid fraud is a fine of up to $50,000 or 10 times the value of the payments obtained, imprisonment for up to 10 years, or both.
Parada is a licensed addiction counselor who owns and operates CMP Power of Healing Counseling and Treatment Center, a mental health center and chemical dependency clinic in Great Falls.
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He’s accused of making $40,384.63 in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursement claims.
In May, Parada requested funds from Cascade County’s alcohol tax allocation, which is distributed by the state for chemical dependency services.
In April 2026, the Montana Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to the county listing the eligible providers in the county, which included Power of Healing.
County Commissioners did not approve funding for Power of Healing.
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The clinic became a Medicaid facility on April 24, 2023 and Parada became an individual Medicaid-enrolled provider on July 14, 2023.
In May 2025, the Montana Medicaid Fraud Hotline received a complaint from a woman who identified herself as a former client of Parada’s and that she’d started seeing him for chemical dependency and mental health services in December 2023, according to court documents.
She told investigators that she saw Parada for three or four appointments but discovered he’d continued to bill her appointments through March or April of 2024.
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She told investigators that Parada had paid her to refer clients to his business and paid her to office work, including translating and taking notes during client appointments and data entry, according to court documents.
Parada also paid for her phone bill, “which she understood to be a bribe,” according to court documents.
Investigators pulled Parada’s Medicaid claims from Jan. 1, 2023 to June 17. 2025, and later expanded that to July 13, 2026. From that data, investigators found nine recipients to review and issued an investigative subpoena to Parada on Jan. 20, 2026.
In July 2025, investigators talked to the initial complainant, who said she was referred to Parada by her ex-boyfriend, who had been working with Parada at the time.
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The complainant told investigators that she needed intensive outpatient services to remain compliant with her probation and first met with Parada in December 2023, according to court documents.
She told investigators that soon after that initial appointment, she relapsed and thought she saw Parada another one or two times in January 2024, but the maximum number of sessions was four, ending that month.
The complainant found that Parada continued billing Medicaid for appointments she did not attend when she received an explanation of benefits in the spring of 2024, according to court documents, but took no action since she was in active drug use.
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The complainant voluntarily entered inpatient treatment in April 2025 and told her mental health counselor about Parada’s practices, who encouraged her to report his behavior, which is when she reported it to the Montana Medicaid Fraud Hotline and state behavioral health licensing board.
State investigators identified 168 claims that Medicaid reimbursed Parada from December 2023 to April 2025 pertaining to the complainant, which included patient/family therapy and group therapy, or 164 more than the complainant had attended, for $14,329.54 in fraudulent reimbursement, according to court documents.
Investigators spoke with others of Parada’s clients, including a man who began counseling services around December 2024 and remains a client as of the case filing. He said he met with Parada individually generally on Tuesdays or Thursdays for therapy and spoke to him daily on the phone for 15-60 minutes, according to court documents.
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Investigators found 169 claims that Parada submitted to Medicaid under the client’s name for group therapy and, after subtracting a legitimate claim and four that weren’t reimbursed, totaled 164 claims for $3,086.08 in fraudulent reimbursement.
Another client told investigators that she began meeting with Parada about two years ago and stopped seeing him about seven months before the interview, according to court documents. She said she attended one group therapy session and was confident she didn’t see Parada as often as the 191 claims totaling $3,597.67 investigators determined to be fraudulent, plus two other claims for individual sessions for $208.68, for a total $3,806.35 in fraudulent reimbursement.
Between those three clients, Parada claimed $21,22197 in fraudulent reimbursement, according to court documents.
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The initial complainant told investigators that Parada offered to pay her $30 per client she referred to him. She brought three clients and received $30 to $60 for each referral, depending on the length of the referral.
Investigators spoke with one of the people she had referred, who received outpatient treatment, including one individual session per week, and attended one group therapy session.
Parada billed Medicaid for individual therapy, group therapy and some case management for that client, from October 2024 to May 2025, submitting 198 fraudulent claims totaling $15,367.31.
Parada also billed Medicaid for individual and group therapy sessions for the other client the initial complainant had referred, from June to December 2024, for $3,795.35 in 50 claims, according to court documents.
After Parada was notified of the state’s investigation, he submitted records to the state for 10 clients “that he knew to be false,” including progress notes for therapy sessions that didn’t occur.
