06/19/2025
How identity theft can come to your loved one in assisted living.
Lets suppose an unlicensed administrator and their family members come to work at an assisted living. Administrator hires many family and undocumented or even people with a record, in an assisted living facility. They set out to create an id farm and steal residents’ personal information, to commit identity theft and fraud. But it doesnt stop there.
Lets say they use and create fake names and used licenses of others, to hide their past and continue the scheme at other facilities.
Let’s break down how it can and does happen.
• Administrators: A person who has aliases usually should set off red flags, as should someone who has many addresses and phone numbers attached to their identity. Having many aliases allows use of those names to cover their real records. They may legally change their names in court. They can forge licenses (an administrator or employee knows someones history, or has knowlege of residents prior occupations or can make a new one) and becomes credentialed with stolen resident information to obtain clean fingerprints from a mobile fingerprinting service thats on the take.
• Staffing: The administrator hires their family, their contacts, under the radar workers, and bad actors as caregivers or staff. Some of the related members use similar names (e.g., slight spelling changes to avoid plausible deniability) and have access to personal information from records or residents. Staff can also be illegals and masked by identity farming, threat of exposure while the operation is working.
• Fingerprint Service: Compromised moble services born of covid lockdowns can use anyones finger to make fake identities, ensuring forged licenses and jobs passed background checks.
Facts:
Stolen Social Security numbers and bank details from unsecured records (paper files, old computers), are pretty common in 30% of facilities.
Target vulnerable dementia residents, 40% sedated with medications, who are not aware or couldn’t even report theft, in units with minimum care ratio if that at all, at night.
Leaky policies:

Forged licenses, alias and identities using stolen information and fingerprints, exploit name-based background checks that can totally miss fake names which aren’t biometric linked to SSN or names.
Family relations employed or even under the table workers allow access to residents and records, blending in without suspicion.
Why? Used stolen information for fake bank accounts, housing applications, drivers license, voter cards, and Medicare / medicaid/ food stamps claims. Once outted they move to new facilities.
When It Happened
• 2019-2024 (15% of identity theft targets elderly, 2023 FTC).
Why It Worked
• Facilities often use name-based background checks to avoid cost to them, which miss fake names (26 states skip thorough checks).
• 30% of facilities have unsecured records, easy to steal from.
• One caregiver for 12 residents and heavy sedation hide abuse.
• Fingerprint services faced no audits during the pandemic.
Harm Caused
• Lost money for resident through fake accounts and taxpayers though Medicare / medicaid/ food stamp claims.
• Sedation and understaffing risked neglect or abuse.
• Perpetrators continue at other facilities, endangering more seniors.
Arizona State Assisted Living Laws and Arizona Dept Health Services are weak, weak, weak as is enforcement of even simple infractions.
Arizona’s leadership—Governors, AG, Department of Health Services, Board of Nursing, and legislature—created a permissive environment through:
• Budget Cuts: Reduced Department of Health Services staff by 15% (2018–2022), limiting inspections and audits.
• Industry Influence: Prioritized assisted living facility operators’ cost concerns over resident protections, rejecting federal check and staffing mandates.
• Reactive Policies: Only acted after scandals (e.g., 2019 Hacienda HealthCare, 2023 fraud cases)
• Fragmented Systems: No integration of biometric data across agencies (e.g., Department of Health Services, Board of Nursing), missing aliases and fake licenses.
The scheme thrived because Arizona leadership didn’t cross-link biometric identities (fingerprints).
• The Department of Health Services allowed 20% of facilities to skip fingerprint checks, using name-based checks that missed the administrator’s fake names and misdemeanor.
• The Board of Nursing failed to verify the administrator’s forged nursing license, not cross-linking fingerprints with federal records.
• State legislators rejected laws for federal checks and secure records, leaving 30% of facilities with unprotected resident information.
• No audits of fingerprint services. It’s a free-for-all, allowing anyone with a scanner access to any unlinked “print” in order to make new identities. Which would allow bad actors to bypass federal checks.
• Unmonitored sedation (40% of dementia residents) and understaffing (12:1 ratio) hid the theft, ignored by state policy.
DEMAND BETTER!
Do research and pressure Elected!
