In 2006 in Edmonds, Washington, a woman from Everett by the name of Barbara Reuter who was 48 years old, stole information about her homeless shelter roommate. She stole her name, social security number, date of birth and other information in order to commit medical identity theft. Her roommate was a Medicaid client from DSHS in Washington State. Barbara assumed her identity to go to doctors. She would then present certain symptoms to the doctors in order to get a prescription for narcotics. She was also very skillful in convincing the doctors that was a real Medicaid patient. A contractor for Washington State noticed duplicate billing and was alerted to the fact that something fishy was going on and notified the insurance agency in 2007.
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They had said they were able to start unscrambling the scheme that the lady was pulling because of “the fact that they were watching their pennies. “ The pattern of doctor shopping to get drugs was noticed by the DSHS office of Patient Review and Coordination. Barbara was thought to have received about $180,000 in prescription drugs and medical services. Most of the $180,000 loss will be taken by some of the medical providers and Medicaid. DHS had lost around $20,000 in state funds. Though luckily, no money was taken from the woman whom Barbra had taken the identity from and she did not have to suffer for what the other woman did.
The State social service officials were able to identify the woman and then turned the case over to the Washington State Patrol. The Edmonds police department helped in apprehending the woman. She was then booked into Snohomish County Jail. The charges against her were 30 counts of fraud, 9 counts of theft, six of forgery, one for first degree identity theft, and warrants of drug
They had said they were able to start unscrambling the scheme that the lady was pulling because of “the fact that they were watching their pennies. “ The pattern of doctor shopping to get drugs was noticed by the DSHS office of Patient Review and Coordination. Barbara was thought to have received about $180,000 in prescription drugs and medical services. Most of the $180,000 loss will be taken by some of the medical providers and Medicaid. DHS had lost around $20,000 in state funds. Though luckily, no money was taken from the woman whom Barbra had taken the identity from and she did not have to suffer for what the other woman did.
The State social service officials were able to identify the woman and then turned the case over to the Washington State Patrol. The Edmonds police department helped in apprehending the woman. She was then booked into Snohomish County Jail. The charges against her were 30 counts of fraud, 9 counts of theft, six of forgery, one for first degree identity theft, and warrants of drug