A 48-year old Duval County woman was arrested today on two counts of practicing as a Health Care Professional without an active, valid Florida License. The suspect, identified as Amy Suzanne Pohlman, 48, 4515 Ortega Farms Cr., was booked into the County Jail on $50,000 bond.
The suspect, who claimed to be a registered nurse, to have a PhD, and claimed she was an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner (ARNP), had been hired as Nurse Administrator for a Ponte Vedra Beach company (Ponte Vedra Home Care) in October 2015. The suspect had documents alleging she had a nursing license at the time. Her duties included writing up care plans, visit clients and assist with the company’s marketing. As she became familiar with more clients, she offered nursing care independently as a Care Manager.
Last June company officials became suspicious after attempting to determine if the suspect’s nursing license was still valid, couldn’t find that she was licensed and notified the Department of Health. At the time the suspect resigned from her position from the company and the investigation began.
Detectives with the Sheriff’s Office Special Victims’ Unit (SVU) along with the assistance from a medical investigator from the Jacksonville Office of the Florida Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit took over the investigation in September and discovered that the suspect had signed a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order and created a fake ARNP license. She is also charged with performing a physical exam on an applicant of the home care company.
The investigation revealed that the suspect did not have a Doctorate of Philosophy of Physiology degree that she claimed, nor did she have a Master’s or any other degree in Nursing. Detectives also located an award type plaque that was displayed in her office from the Trustees of the Mayo Clinic: Alzheimer’s disease Research Center, issued on March 9, 2016 in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was determined that there was no such award given by the Mayo Clinic and investigators found that the suspect ordered and paid for the plaque which was created at a local awards/ trophy business in Jacksonville.
Additional charges are pending further investigation. Anyone that may have come in contact with the suspect on a professional basis is asked to contact SVU Detective David Rosado at the Sheriff’s Office at (904) 209-2161.
She faked a license with my RN program, telling the school that her grandfather had been a surgeon at St. Vincent’s for “decades” and she could help them get into that hospital for clinicals. After lying to the students about stopping to help a motorcycle victim, then allegedly riding in the ambulance with him and “settling him” in the ED at St. Vincent’s I reported my concerns to the school. The next term she could not provide a “hard copy” of her license and was let go. When I saw this article, I called the school to tell them “I told you so!”