Man sentenced for $4M in bogus medical bills
Aug 31, 2012, 11:19 AM | Updated: 12:25 pm
A medical worker has been sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay restitution for submitting millions of dollars in bogus medical bills to insurance companies, the state insurance commissioner announced Friday.
Kenneth R. Welling, 45, of Lake Forest Park, pleaded guilty in June to seven felony counts of theft.
Welling, a registered surgical technologist, owned a Shoreline-based surgical services company. He was responsible for preparing instruments and supplies before surgeries, but would submit bills after the fact that listed himself as the doctor or physician.
“We also discovered that there were numerous cases in which he submitted bills for surgeries that never even took place,” said Rich Roesler, a spokesperson for the Office of the Insurance Commissioner.
Roesler said the fraud involved billing and Welling never performed actual medical care.
From 2004 to 2011, it was discovered that Welling billed five insurance companies for at least $4.1 million in fraudulent services. He was paid $461,000, which he will have to return in restitution.
The scam was uncovered after a patient complained that her insurer had been billed $89,000 for six surgeries that never took place.
