It certainly seems that way.
Producing a constant flow of illicit and disturbing headlines, psychiatrists and psychologists have involved themselves in scandalous theft after theft—ripping off patients, insurance companies and Medicare and Medicaid alike, with all the moral regret of a hungry pack of ravenous wolves in a chicken coop.
And now, in the great frozen north of Alaska, yet another case has emerged.
“100 percent of the claims reviewed were found to be fraudulent.”
Dr. Lina Judith Bautista, 69, a 1982 graduate of Universidad Central del Caribe’s School of Medicine in Puerto Rico, got busted when an Alaska state trooper discovered that his medical insurance had been billed for multiple face-to-face sessions between his daughter and Bautista—sessions that never happened.
The trooper blew the whistle loud and clear, alerting the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) of the Alaska Department of Law that “if Bautista was willing to provide false information to his insurance company, he suspected she was doing the same to Medicaid.”
His alert triggered a major investigation into Dr. Bautista’s billing practices over a six-year period, with investigators focusing their detailed review on a selection of 50 days “due to the substantial volume of claims.”
She had been a very busy girl.
So investigators rolled up their forensic sleeves and went to work.
They subpoenaed Bautista’s cell phone data—along with patient files, nursing notes and entry badge scan records—to determine when she was actually at work and when she wasn’t.
After poring over all of that, they wove a web that appears impossible for Bautista to escape. Legal documents state that MFCU uncovered “inconsistent records” and determined that “100 percent of the claims reviewed were found to be fraudulent.”
One hundred percent—every single one!
They further discovered that Bautista routinely submitted claims for providing psychiatric services “when it was physically impossible for them to have occurred,” including fraudulently documenting and billing for face-to-face meetings when she was traveling out of state or when she was located at a different facility.
Freedom sought to interview the heroic state trooper who helped bring down the hammer of justice on the psychiatric ripoff queen, but the Alaska Department of Law informed us his identity was being withheld.
When investigators looked into Bautista’s billing records between 2018 and 2022, they found “improbable or impossible times of service, multiple patient records dictated at the exact same time,” and instances of Bautista claiming to have seen patients who had left the treatment facility prior to the alleged “appointments.”
She once checked into a facility at 10:04 a.m., according to scan records of her badge, but claimed she had seen seven patients between 7:00 and 9:35 a.m.—hours before she had even arrived.
Investigators found that Bautista would copy notes from one patient into other patients’ files, without changing the gender and details.
She also made seven claims for treating patients when she was provably on vacation in Las Vegas.
For all this “treatment,” Bautista routinely billed at the top-level Medicaid tier.
Accordingly, she has now been indicted on 16 felony counts, including first-degree theft, scheme to defraud and medical assistance fraud.
A discovery hearing ahead of trial will commence on March 10.
Providence Alaska Medical Center, one of the three psychiatric facilities where Bautista worked as a freelance shrink—and where much of her fraudulent activity allegedly occurred—wasted no time in throwing Bautista under the legal bus, stating, “The provider [Bautista] is not employed by Providence, and the charges are related to the provider’s billing.”
In other words, Bautista, you’re on your own.
Overall, prosecutors estimate that she ran up a fraudulent insurance tab of close to $190,000—in those 50 days alone. It is estimated that her fraud over four years could have totaled as much as $5 million.
Looks like it pays pretty good to be a psychiatric ripoff artist—that is, until the law comes knocking, and then you end up paying it all to the attorneys who are trying to keep you out of prison.
Good luck with that, Bautista.
If found guilty on all counts, she could face decades in prison.
Given that psychiatrists are, in essence, drug dealers paid top dollar to dispense harmful psychotropic drugs for “mental illnesses” they can’t even prove exist, it’s a short leap from there to hardcore thievery.
Hopefully, Bautista will enjoy many years in a tiny cell.
But in the crooked, twisted world of psychiatry, a case like hers is hardly shocking—it’s not the exception; it’s the rule.
