Parkland Hospital Ex-employee Admits to Leaking Patient Info for Tax Fraud Scheme

A Parkland Memorial Hospital health care worker saw an opportunity to "make some quick money" from patient information she had access to as a certified medical assistant, federal court documents say.Krystal Ann Hodge took that opportunity. She stole the personal information of about 100 patients, which was used in a large tax refund scam, prosecutors said. The patients were inmates at the Dallas County jails, where Parkland provides health care services.Hodge, 38, has agreed to plead guilty to illegally disclosing protected health information for personal gain, court records show. The Dallas woman is scheduled to enter her guilty plea before a federal judge next week and faces up to a decade in prison.She is the second Parkland employee to recently admit to stealing private patient information for a fraudulent scheme.Viju Mathew, 52, was sentenced last year to 30 months in prison for stealing Parkland patient lists to use in a health care fraud involving his home health company. The Garland man was a patient registration specialist at Parkland before he was fired. His wife, Mariamma Viju, 52, received the same sentence for her part in the scheme. She stole patient information from Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas where she worked as a nurse.  Continue reading...

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