Florida law enforcement said a woman accused of posing as a nurse was arrested after treating more than 4,000 patients without being a registered medical professional.
The suspect was identified as 29-year-old Autumn Bardisa, who perpetrated the alleged scam that began in July 2023 at AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway, the New York Post reported on Thursday.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said an investigation was launched in January after hospital administrators told officials they fired Bardisa for “impersonating a registered nurse by utilizing another individual’s license number and submitting false documentation to be employed as an advanced nurse technician” at the facility.
The Sheriff’s office continued:
According to the hospital, Bardisa was hired on July 3, 2023, as an advanced nurse tech, working under the supervision of a registered nurse. When applying for the position, Bardisa indicated that she was an “education first” registered nurse, meaning that she passed the required schooling to become a registered nurse but had not yet passed the national exam to obtain her license.
During the hiring process, Bardisa then informed the hospital that she had passed the exam and provided a license number matching an individual with her first name, Autumn, but with a different last name. Bardisa attempted to explain the discrepancy, stating that she had recently gotten married and had a new last name. Bardisa was then asked to provide her marriage license to AdventHealth, which she never did.
Bardisa was offered a promotion in January but a coworker looked into her license and realized she had an expired certified nursing assistant license. The coworker then alerted administrators. Bardisa was fired when she failed to confirm her identity and hospital authorities contacted the sheriff’s department.
“The investigation determined that Bardisa shared a first name with the other nurse, who was employed by AdventHealth, but at a different hospital, and had attended school with her. However, the two did not personally know each other,” the sheriff’s office noted.
Law enforcement said that while Bardisa was working she participated in medical services to 4,486 individuals even though she never had a valid nursing license.
Bardisa was taken into custody this week after law enforcement obtained an arrest warrant for her regarding seven counts of practicing a health care profession without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification information.
She is being held on a $70,000 bond. Video footage shows the moment investigators confront and handcuff Bardisa, who was wearing medical scrubs:
In a statement, Sheriff Rick Staly said:
This is one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we’ve ever investigated. This woman potentially put thousands of lives at risk by pretending to be someone she was not and violating the trust of patients, their families, AdventHealth and an entire medical community. Thanks to great investigative work between our detectives and State Attorney, Florida’s 7th Circuit R.J. Larizza’s Office and AdventHealth, along with our state and federal partners, she’ll now be held accountable for her reckless and dangerous actions.
According to an NBC News report, “The charging affidavit in the case said AdventHealth ‘failed to immediately identify that Autumn had never uploaded the marriage license’ and of ‘oversight on the discrepancies’ in Bardisa’s employee information.”
