Obligated to report if taking care of an illegal immigrant with a fake ID?

Flare, ASN, BSN · Jul 18, 2012

It probably had more to do with hospital billing dept not finding a viable person to bill the services to -a simple inquiry on who a person is can snowball very quickly, and while the hospital has no obligation to contact ICE, their collections agencies may.

Born_2BRN · Jul 18, 2012

How did you know he carries fake ID? Your case manager should able to handle that. Tough one and I would like to know how others would handle that too.

emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Jul 18, 2012

Not something I have to report from the ER like animal bites & abuse.

Salisburysteak, BSN, RN · Jul 18, 2012

Basically , what happened was his wife was driving and got pulled over by the police. She had a warrant for a traffic offense, and the cops were curious about her passenger(her husband), but she would not tell them who he was. Well, the police and ICE must have done some digging and he was soon arrested by federal agents. I was told he was carrying a fake ID to make him look legal. This person was just seen by the local ER in their town and I was just wondering if the hospital said something to law enforcement.

@Flare, the billing issue could definitely make sense.

Thanks for all the info :)

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Jul 18, 2012

Its more likely the fact that the wife failed to disclose information about her passenger and the outstanding warrant that triggered the investigation, just pure coincidence that the husband was recently treated in the ER. Though presesnting false ID and insurance information to a medical facility is fraudulent...patient billing wouldn't catch up to him in a few days. AND patient billing isn't likely to trigger a immigration investigation perhaps a fraudulent document/ID theft investigation but even that isn't likely.

klone, MSN, RN · Jul 18, 2012

I am just wanting to know if hospitals and/or urgent care clinics are obligated to report if they know they are taking care of an illegal immigrant with a fake ID..

No.

Apparently "No" is too short of a message.

Heck, no. Your obligation is to treat them. That's it. You have no obligation to INS.

Salisburysteak, BSN, RN · Jul 18, 2012

Thank you all for answering my question.

Good day to all of you.

Andy Droid · Jul 18, 2012

immigration issues aside, wouldn't the hospital itself have some sort of rules against knowingly letting someone using an alias?

For billing reasons ( as mentioned above) or someone trying to get multiple prescriptions if nothing else would be my guess for most places having something to say about the topic.

Flare, ASN, BSN · Jul 19, 2012

immigration issues aside, wouldn't the hospital itself have some sort of rules against knowingly letting someone using an alias?
For billing reasons ( as mentioned above) or someone trying to get multiple prescriptions if nothing else would be my guess for most places having something to say about the topic.

An alias isn't very taboo in a hospital setting until it gets to the time that the services need to be paid for. Arrangements can be made to maintain the alias and submit payment. There are plenty of times that celebs register themselves under an alias. I have even seen employees suspected of working while intoxicated be issued an alias for confidentiality purposes.

Mulan · Jul 19, 2012

I am just wanting to know if hospitals and/or urgent care clinics are obligated to report if they know they are taking care of an illegal immigrant with a fake ID.
I know of someone who was just picked up by ICE, and coincidentally this person had just gone to the ER for a medical issue. This person also carries a fake ID to make themselves look legal.
I do not want to turn this into a big argument about immigration.
Thank you.

No, but it's possible that an employee with strong feelings about the subject could have reported.