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Police Say Woman Scammed Health-Care Providers for Drugs

Posted on: Friday, 31 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Karina Ioffee, The Record, Stockton, Calif.

Mar. 31--MANTECA - A 30-year-old woman scammed health-care providers to receive $60,000 of unneeded medical care and feed her drug habit, according to the Manteca Police Department.

Yodit Hiskias was arrested Wednesday, said Rex Osborn, a spokesman for the Manteca Police Department.

Hiskias had gone to Kaiser Permanente in Manteca seeking morphine for a painful medical condition. A nurse at the hospital recognized Hiskias from a previous visit and contacted police. An officer interviewed Hiskias and determined that she was lying and arrested her, Osborn said.

"This is a professional patient who understood the system well enough to get admitted to a hospital and the illness well enough to emulate the symptoms," Osborn said.

Police believe Hiskias is a Bay Area resident, although she has no known residence. She has warrants from San Jose and Santa Clara for violation of probation and driving under the influence, Osborn said.

Many heroin addicts use morphine to transition from their drug dependency without suffering painful withdrawal symptoms, Osborn said.

"If you think about it, she is going about it the right way," he said. "Instead of shooting up in an alley, she is having health professionals do it for her in a clean environment."

Hiskias - who has no insurance - ran up an estimated $60,000 in medical expenses over two visits to Kaiser in Manteca, police said. She had also been admitted to a Stockton-area hospital and another one in Santa Clara.

She has been charged with two counts of grand theft, two counts of obtaining a prescription illegally and resisting arrest. She faces prison time if convicted.

Contact reporter Karina Ioffee at (209) 546-8279 or kioffee@recordnet.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Record, Stockton, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Record

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