Once again a Los Angeles hospital is having trouble keeping its medical records private, but this time it's a much more drastic case. Now, a former employee from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's billing department is accused of taking the records of 1,000 patients.
The man took these records home, then proceeded to create a fictitious lab and submitted workers' compensation claims to insurance companies based on lab tests that were, obviously, never performed.
While the fraud shouldn't have caused any direct financial harm to the patients involved, they have been warned to watch their credit reports just in case. So far, none of them have reported any problems.
The former employee, whose name is James Allen Wilson, is being held on $895,000 bail. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges of identity theft, insurance fraud and grand theft.
To learn more about the case:
- read this L.A. Times piece