📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
4,486 patients between June 2024 and January 2025 on a classmate's licence number: the AdventHealth Palm Coast nurse technician who said she had married and changed her name
In the United States nursing licences are issued by state boards, and any licence number can be checked on the Florida Department of Health's online register. The case of a nurse technician at a hospital in Palm Coast, Florida, shows how an employer that asks for a number but never ties it to the person who gave it can let someone treat thousands of patients.
According to WSVN, the Flagler County Sheriff's Office said Autumn Bardisa, 29, was hired by AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway on 3 July 2023 as an advanced nurse technician. She said she had completed the education required to become a registered nurse, later that she had passed the national licensing exam, and gave a licence number belonging to a different registered nurse with the same first name. Asked about the surname, she said she had married and changed her name, but never produced the marriage certificate the hospital requested. The nurse whose number she used had been a nursing-school classmate at a different AdventHealth location with no personal relationship to her. Investigators said she treated 4,486 patients between June 2024 and January 2025 without a valid nursing licence.
It unravelled in January 2025 when she was considered for promotion and a colleague checked her credentials, finding only an expired certified nursing assistant licence. She was dismissed on 22 January 2025 after failing to confirm her identity, and the hospital called the sheriff. After a seven-month investigation with the Florida Department of Health and the US Department of Health and Human Services, she was arrested at home on 5 August 2025 on seven counts of practising a health-care profession without a licence and seven of fraudulent use of personal identification, with bond set at $70,000. The sheriff's office reported that on 7 April 2026 she pleaded no contest before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols; adjudication was withheld and she received five years' probation, 50 hours of community service, an order to write an apology to the nurse whose number she used, and forfeiture of the nursing licence she had obtained after her arrest. Sheriff Rick Staly called it 'one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we've ever investigated'.
The check that failed was the simplest one. A real licence number passed the lookup; whether it belonged to this employee was asked, by requesting a marriage certificate, and then left unanswered for a year and a half.
The lesson applies on both sides of the desk. Never lend your registration details to anyone, including classmates, because a borrowed number is identity theft with your name on it. And before treatment in a private clinic, ask for the practitioner's licence and check it on the regulator's register yourself.
Were you affected by this case, or something like it? Report it with your own evidence, or tell your story — first-person accounts are what stop the next family.
This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.