Patient Records Erroneously Diagnose Woman with Schizophrenia after ID Breach

A woman in Chicago says her medical files state she spent three days medicated and restrained at a county run hospital after police found her wandering the streets vandalizing cars – but none of that happened to her. She was being billed for someone else hospitalized under her name.

“This is someone who has a mental illness walking around with my identity. I was upset,” Lisa Voss said.

She tried to correct the bill, but Stroger Hospital staff did not believe her, Voss said.

In another case, Chicagoan Fred Nelson encountered a similar situation of mistaken identity.

“It’s a bill for a consultation for my father,” Nelson says. “Problem is, my father passed away 2 ½ years ago.”

His father, Fred Nelson Sr., who died in 2012, was billed $477 from Medical Services RIC for a July 2014 doctor’s office visit at Northwestern Memorial.

“I was informed that I am being held liable — that they did their investigation and they can’t prove that it wasn’t me,” Voss says.

After she was given the runaround for two months, Voss paid another visit.

It turns out no one from the hospital had verified the mental patient’s real identity, even though she reportedly arrived at the facility without any ID.

The fake Lisa Voss was transferred from Stroger to state-run Madden Mental Health Center in Maywood.

A state spokesperson said Madden staff realized the patient’s name was not Lisa Voss during a routine screening check.

Nelson’s case remains inexplicable.