Health fund fraud in Plovdiv: Bag of patient ID cards was meant to disappear
During the raid at St. George University Hospital, investigators found 15 empty beds for 15 supposedly hospitalized patients. The prosecutor speaks of an attempt to destroy evidence.
Symbolic image · Photo: Община Пловдив / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
New details have emerged in the alleged fraud against the National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK) in Plovdiv: during the operation by police and prosecutors at St. George University Hospital, someone tried to carry a bag of patients’ ID cards out of the building. Supervising prosecutor Dimitar Pehlivanov of the Plovdiv District Prosecutor’s Office described it on BNT’s program “Govori sega” as an attempt to hide evidence.
According to the prosecutor, the ID cards were used to book fictitious admissions: patients were admitted with a printed sheet and discharged after about a day so that the ward always appeared full. The data came partly from relatives, acquaintances, colleagues or neighbors, some of whom knew nothing about it. In one case, blood was additionally drawn from a patient and assigned to a fictitious cancer patient. At the site, investigators found 15 empty beds – and 15 patients listed in the records but missing.
What the hospital management knew has not been established so far, Pehlivanov said. The evidence is based on confessions and witness statements gathered over several months; the scheme always worked according to the same pattern. The proceedings are ongoing, and all suspects are presumed innocent.