Healthcare Worker Shortages After Covid-19 Open Licensing Loopholes, Fueling a Surge of Fake Nurses Across the U.S.
In early April, Pennsylvania state police pulled over a Mercedes in Pittsburgh for a routine traffic violation after the driver failed to signal a turn. What began as a simple stop unexpectedly exposed a nationwide fraud network.
The female driver presented an expired vehicle registration that did not match her ID. Police then obtained a warrant to search the car, uncovering a trove of documents—including access badges to medical facilities, patient logs, and prescriptions not in the driver’s name.
Investigators later revealed the driver’s real identity as Shannon Nicole Womack, who had used around 20 aliases and 7 different Social Security numbers to secure nursing jobs in Pennsylvania. Authorities suspect she may have committed similar crimes in other states.
This case is far from isolated. In recent years, officials in multiple states have reported instances of so-called “fake nurses,” individuals working in medical roles requiring certification without holding valid credentials.
Some regulatory bodies have adopted the term “fake nurses” to describe such offenders, while maintaining updated watchlists to prevent them from moving across state lines and continuing their schemes elsewhere.
The state of Arizona has listed more than 130 people who “applied for jobs, were hired, or presented themselves as nurses without a valid license” between 2000 and 2024. Georgia listed more than 40 such individuals but did not specify a timeframe. Texas recorded 140 cases between 2003 and 2024.
According to Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, shortages in staffing, budget constraints, and lax oversight in some states after the Covid-19 pandemic have worsened the problem in recent years.
“Impostors can cause harm, even death, and undermine the public’s trust,” she warned.
The most common scheme involves individuals working under someone else’s nursing license. One such case was Autumn Bardisa, who was arrested in Florida last August. She was accused of using the name and nursing license number of a former classmate to apply for a senior nursing position in 2023.
In her job application, Bardisa submitted her classmate’s license number—belonging to another woman also named Autumn but with a different last name. To make it appear legitimate, Bardisa claimed she had gotten married and changed her surname.
From June 2024 to January 2025, Bardisa was hired and provided medical services to 4,486 patients at a hospital in Palm Coast, Florida. The scheme unraveled only after she was offered a promotion, prompting colleagues to verify her credentials and discover that her nursing license had expired.
The hospital conducted an internal investigation and discovered that Bardisa had never provided a marriage certificate. The fake nurse was fired on January 22.
Kennedy explained that prior medical experience allows impostors to avoid detection for longer periods, while others simply move from one healthcare facility to another to escape scrutiny.
Womack, who was arrested in Pennsylvania last April, was not licensed in any state, had “absolutely no basic medical knowledge,” yet managed to work shifts at nine healthcare facilities across Pennsylvania since 2023.
Investigators later found that Womack was already on Georgia’s “fake nurse” list and was wanted in New Jersey, Georgia, and Tennessee, with several other states still processing arrest warrants. She is accused of impersonating four different nurses, using their identities to obtain short-term jobs.
The situation has grown even more complicated as some states loosened licensing rules to hire nurses “as quickly as possible” during the pandemic.
“Of course, the pressure was enormous. We’re facing a shortage of nurses, but we must ensure the process is done properly,” Kennedy said.
Back in 2019, federal agents received a tip about a nursing school in Florida selling fake diplomas and transcripts. For $17,000, impostors could obtain the academic credentials required to sit for the NCLEX nursing licensure exam—without ever attending classes or completing clinical training.