CALAIS – Municipal officials in Washington County are waiting to see how their towns and cities will be affected by the federal indictment of the county’s largest ambulance service for Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

A 214-count federal indictment against McGovern Ambulance Service and owner Dana McGovern was unsealed Thursday, charging McGovern with a complicated scheme to defraud federal and state health benefit programs out of close to $1 million.

There was widespread fear Friday that ambulance services might be suspended in the communities McGovern serves from Wesley to Danforth in Washington County, and in parts of Aroostook County. But McGovern’s attorney, Dan Lacasse of Calais, offered a calming voice Friday afternoon and assured Washington County residents that ambulance service would continue.

What caused the concern were reports that in addition to criminal and civil penalties that could be assessed against McGovern and his corporation, the indictment could seek forfeiture of McGovern’s personal and business assets.

The indictment froze the assets, but Lacasse explained that only meant the assets could not be sold pending the outcome of the case.

The assets listed in the 53-page indictment were: more than 20 ambulances and vans owned by McGovern Ambulance as well as all interest and equity in McGovern Ambulance Service. The indictment also lists other McGovern assets including the ambulance company he owns in New Brunswick, and real property he owns on the River Road and on Union, High, Carver, North and Lowell streets in Calais. Other McGovern-owned assets mentioned in the indictment include property in Eastport and Lubec, as well as two parcels in Port Charlotte, Fla.

The indictment alleges that McGovern billed Medicaid and Medicare for:

. Ambulance services when a wheelchair van was used instead.

. Oxygen when no oxygen was administered.

. Transporting people to hospitals when they actually were taken to doctors’ offices.

. Evacuating people to emergency shelters during the ice storm of 1998, and billing Medicare and Medicaid for transportation to hospitals and delivery of advanced life support services.

Calais interim city manager Jim Porter assured residents that ambulance service in the county’s largest city would continue uninterrupted. Porter said several people had called him and expressed concern about the future of the company. “I’ve tried to allay their fears,” he said.

In Eastport, City Manager George “Bud” Finch said his city had been assured that ambulance service would continue. He said he had not spoken with McGovern ambulance officials Friday. He said he hoped this latest problem would force the respective communities to seek a countywide solution to the ambulance service problem. “We need to look at what the requirements are to either take that over, bring in another firm or create something on a regional basis,” he said. “The individual communities cannot do it alone.”

In Lubec, ambulance service was more questionable. Lubec was hardest hit this year, when McGovern hiked its annual fee from $14,760 to $91,000. Lubec voters raised the additional money during the town’s annual business meeting in August.

Last week, the ambulance company notified Lubec that its division was running a monthly deficit of nearly $5,000, and, as a result, service to the town would end as of Feb. 8.

Lubec selectmen met Friday evening to discuss the future. They voted to file an application with the state to start the Lubec Ambulance Service and to apply for whatever grants they can to help start and operate the service.

Lubec Town Administrator Nancy Matthews said earlier Friday there was concern that McGovern staff might not receive their paychecks Friday. “There’s concern that we might not have [ambulance service] over the weekend,” she said.

In northern Washington County and southern Aroostook County where nine towns formed their own ambulance service two years ago, Danforth Town Manager Tammy Bonner said Friday, “I think we’re going to be all right.”

In December 1998, Danforth, Forest City Township and Brookton Township in Washington County, and Orient, Weston, Bancroft, Reed Plantation, Glenwood Plantation and Haynesville in Aroostook County formed the Northern Washington-Southern Aroostook Regional Ambulance Service to serve about 1,800 people.

The regional service owns an ambulance, the equipment in it, and the building in which it is kept in Danforth, but has a contract with McGovern to manage the service, including training, billing for services and quality assurance. Emergency medical technicians with the service are local people who are employed by McGovern.

The service has 15 EMTs, including two paramedics and three who are certified at the intermediate level. The remainder hold basic-level certification.

Bonner, who admitted Friday that she knew little about the situation other than what she heard on the news, said the freeze on McGovern assets does not affect the assets of the regional service since McGovern does not own them.

Bonner also noted that the indictments did not shut down McGovern, and the nine towns still had ambulance service.

In a worst-case scenario, she said, the towns might have to hire someone to take over dispatch duties and oversee the operation of the service and its employees.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with us right now,” Bonner said.

The regional group in September signed a one-year contract for $39,000 with McGovern with payments to be made quarterly rather than in one lump sum.

“We said we’re only paying quarterly, because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Bonner, adding that only one of those payments had been made so far.

For the previous two years, the region had paid McGovern $27,000 a year.

Earlier this year, McGovern ran into trouble with the town of Houlton when the company failed to pay $10,000 in debts it owed to the town’s ambulance service for advanced life support backup to the Washington-Aroostook service.

In March, Houlton officials threatened to terminate the agreement, leaving the Danforth region with no advanced-level backup.

A last-minute deal was brokered in which Dana McGovern paid $2,500 of the debt and agreed to pay off the remaining $7,500 in monthly installments over the next three months.

The deal fell through two months later after McGovern reneged on the deal, having paid no more than the initial $2,500.

“Basically, we’re faced with a choice of having Houlton respond to the Danforth area for a small number of calls, or do we put fuel in our [ambulance] and pay our help this week,” McGovern told the Bangor Daily News on May. 10.

He blamed his monetary problems on the federal government’s seizure of his records the year before.

Houlton has been unable to collect any more of the money since then. Milton Cone, director of the Houlton Ambulance Service, said the matter was turned over to the town’s attorney several months ago.

Addressing the ambulance service’s cash-flow problems on Friday, McGovern’s attorney, Lacasse, said the company was in the process of securing a loan from a local bank to cover the payroll.

The Calais attorney said he had spoken with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, McGovern and key employees.

“We all have one goal that is to continue the current operation of the ambulance service.”