Rachel Collins, a 44-year-old professional counselor from Hamden, has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for defrauding Medicaid of over $1.6 million. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Sarala V. Nagala in Hartford and includes three years of supervised release following her imprisonment.
Collins owned Rachel Collins, LPC Counseling Services LLC in North Haven, where she provided psychotherapy services primarily to children and adolescents with behavioral and mental health issues. She was enrolled as a Behavioral Health Clinician provider under the Connecticut Medicaid Program.
Court documents revealed that between January 2018 and March 2024, Collins submitted fraudulent claims for psychotherapy services that were never provided. These claims were filed under her own billing identification number for dates when no services occurred. She billed Medicaid for excessive hours, including days when she claimed to have worked 12 or more hours or even while traveling out of state.
One instance highlighted during the proceedings involved Collins submitting 96 false claims to Medicaid from March 9 to March 16, 2023, alleging she provided about 12 hours of therapy daily while actually vacationing at Disney World. For these false claims alone, Medicaid paid her $9,349.90.
The investigation uncovered that Collins engaged in extensive travel across the U.S., attended numerous concerts and events, and spent over $150,000 on food delivery services such as Uber Eats and DoorDash during the fraud scheme.
In total, Collins submitted more than 17,000 false claims amounting to $1,647,031.51 defrauded from Medicaid. Judge Nagala ordered her to pay full restitution for the amount stolen.
Between January 2020 and May 2023, Collins was the highest-paid behavioral health clinician in Connecticut's Medicaid program. Despite receiving substantial taxpayer-funded reimbursements during this period—totaling $826,355.91—she also collected $41,182 in unemployment benefits by falsely certifying that she had not worked or been self-employed.
Collins pleaded guilty on August 6, 2024, to one count of healthcare fraud and is scheduled to report to prison on April 28 after being released on a $100,000 bond.
The case was investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), with assistance from the Connecticut Department of Social Services. Assistant U.S. Attorney David T. Huang prosecuted the case.
Individuals suspecting healthcare fraud are urged to report it by calling 1-800-HHS-TIPS.