By admin 
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE/Gray News) – An employee at an optometry office deleted her own bill and altered hundreds of patient records, according to investigators.
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Evansville Police Department responded to the Brizius, Embry & Smith optometry office to take a fraud report.
Officers were told former employee Hannah Richardson, 35, had deleted her own billing ledger. The amount of money owed was about $80, according to the police report.
The owners told police they discovered a large number of ledgers had been altered, preventing them from collecting outstanding bills.
Richardson made the alterations between June 22 and July 2, before quitting her job on July 2, according to investigators.
Police said the company’s IT department said it seemed Richardson not only attempted to defraud the business by deleting outstanding bills, but also appeared to be trying to “create havoc.”
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Investigators discovered that Richardson had altered more than 500 records for 52 patients. She deleted more than $15,000 in outstanding balances, nearly $4,000 in insurance adjustments and nearly $16,000 in payments made by patients, according to investigators.
Richardson also used another employee’s authentication to alter hundreds of additional patient records and delete about $10,000 in outstanding bills, $3,600 in insurance adjustments and $31,000 in payments that had already been made by patients, investigators said.
Richardson told police during questioning that she had no idea what they were talking about.
Richardson was arrested and booked into the Vanderburgh County Jail.
In total, police said the alterations could have defrauded the company of $25,171.34 and that clients could have been rebilled for a total of $46,966.16 in bills they had already paid if the changes made by Richardson weren’t caught.
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Richardson faces charges of theft, fraud and modifying computer data.