School officials explain student data access in alleged Medicaid fraud

NEW HAVEN — That an employee of New Haven’s Adult and Continuing Education Center allegedly was able to take students’ personal information to bill Medicaid for counseling services that never happened likely is something that could have taken place only at that school, officials said.

Cortney Dunlap, the NHACEC

Career Service Office coordinator, is on leave after he was federally charged with health care fraud. Dunlap, a licensed professional counselor, is accused of fraudulently billing Medicaid for counseling services to dozens of people who never saw him for counseling — several reportedly told investigators they had never met him.

Dunlap, who as a participating provider in the Medicaid program had access to a database that would determine whether an individual is insured under Medicaid using a birth date and Social Security number, allegedly used his positions as the founder of a nonprofit, an owner of five group homes and a school administrator to obtain personal information and search for whether individuals were insured under Medicaid.

In total, investigators allege in court documents that Dunlap billed Medicaid for psychotherapy services provided to 136 people who had at various times been enrolled at NHACEC, for a total of $593,383. Investigators reported speaking with NHACEC Principal Michelle Bonora, who shared that it would be a violation of the employee handbook for any employee to receive payment for services

provided to students outside their employment.

A request for comment from the public defender assigned to Dunlap’s case was not returned Monday.

Officials say students’ Social Security numbers would be available only to administrators at NHACEC because of a unique database system. Michele Sherban, the district’s supervisor for research, assessment and analytics, said the adult education database system — which is separate from the student database used in the K-12 schools — includes Social Security numbers as

a field, whereas the other database system does not.

“Adult Education uses the information for the High School Diploma program, but they don’t use it for all students,” she said.

Michael Pinto, the school district’s chief operating officer, said only the final four digits of student Social Security numbers are visible to administrators accessing the system.

Sherban said she does not know what specific purpose the Social Security numbers serve within that program. Bonora, the school’s principal, declined to comment for this story.

Superintendent of Schools Iline Tracey said the two separate databases exist because of a part

nership between the state and adult education programs. She declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

“The (Connecticut State Department of Education) has operated a data base for adult education programs state wide for over two decades that includes program information, class information, student information, and teacher information,” Peter Yazbak, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said in an email. “The leader of the local adult ed program gives permission to other employees — including teachers, counselors and other program administrators — to access to the system for

many reasons such as: to register students, check attendance, change phone numbers or addresses, and provide information to students about grades.”

Sherban said birth dates are a reported field, but not Social Security numbers, on the district’s K-12 student database. Further, administrators would have access only to information about students in their building.

Dunlap was laid off as a school counselor on Aug. 24, 2018, when the school district let go of 24 employees to close a budget deficit, but he reportedly was hired back in February 2019. According to court documents, his current job duties consist of the supervision of career counselors and creating class schedules for students.

Court documents allege that, in his first month of returning to the district, Dunlap was looking up the Medicaid enrollment status of NHACEC students and on Feb. 18 submitted his first Medicaid claims for psychotherapy services purportedly provided to students. Investigators reported interviewing at least five students who purportedly received psychotherapy services from Dunlap, and all five denied ever seeing him for services.

According to the documents, Dunlap allegedly shared in Medicaid claims that at least four of those five students had major depressive disorder; all four said Dunlap had not diagnosed them with the disorder.

In the court documents, investigators allege that on 67 different days in the 94-day period between Jan. 1, 2020, and April 4, 2020, Dunlap billed for more than 24 hours of psychotherapy services. On nine days he allegedly billed for more than 150 hours of psychotherapy services rendered in one day. On 18 more days, he allegedly billed more than 100 hours of psychotherapy services.