Lake Forest Park man pleads guilty to $4 million in bogus medical bills

OLYMPIA, Wash. – A medical worker submitted at least $4.1 million in bogus bills to insurers, sometimes while falsely claiming to be a doctor or physician’s assistant, has pleaded guilty to theft.

Kenneth R. Welling, 45, of Lake Forest Park, pleaded guilty Thursday in King County Superior Court. The charges -- all of which are felonies -- include one count of first-degree theft and six counts of second-degree theft.

“This was a pretty audacious scam,” said state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. “We were tipped off to it when a patient contacted us, saying that Welling billed her insurer $89,000 for six surgeries that never happened.”

Welling is a registered surgical technologist and sole proprietor of Shoreline-based Alpine Surgical Services. His license allows him to perform tasks like preparing supplies and instruments, passing them to the surgeon and preparing basic sterile packs and trays. But after patients had procedures done, he would often submit large bills with codes listing himself as a doctor or physician’s assistant. He is neither.

Kreidler’s investigators also found numerous instances in which Welling billed for surgeries that never happened. Sometimes he would include post-operative reports, listing himself as the surgeon.

No evidence was found to indicate that Welling was playing an improper role in actual medical care. The fraud involved billing.

“As far as we could tell, the only time he pretended to be a doctor was when he submitted bills,” said Kreidler.

In one woman’s case, Welling billed $140,323 as assisting surgeon for nine surgeries that never took place. Over a five-year period, he billed another woman’s insurer 107 times for 51 different surgeries, listing himself as the primary doctor. Hospital records show she’d only had surgery twice.

From 2004 through 2011, according to medical records obtained by Kreidler’s Special Investigations Unit, Welling billed five insurance companies at least $4.1 million for services he did not provide. He was paid $461,000.

“Part of the reason he got away with this for so long is that he’d rarely challenge an insurer who paid little or nothing,” said Kreidler. “He’d just send them the bills and hope they’d pay.”

The investigation also showed that some patients were complaining to their insurers.

“I am angry!” one woman wrote to her insurance company in 2011. “Here is yet another fraudulent claim. Can’t you people help me to stop this? I never had surgery on Aug. 27, 2009. I never met or had anything to do with Ken Welling.”

A sentencing date is expected to be scheduled soon.