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Politics & Government

LFP Man Pleads Guilty to Theft for Filing False Insurance Claims

Kenneth Welling, who owned of Alpine Surgical Service in Shoreline, billed five insurance companies over $4.1 million for work he never did between 2004-2011, and received $461,000 from the companies

A Lake Forest Park man who owns a surgical service in Shoreline pleaded guilty to seven counts of theft relating to his filing of numerous false claims to insurance companies that were worth millions of dollars, KOMO News is reporting.

Kenneth Welling, 45, made the pleaded guility to one count of first degree theft and six counts of second-degree theft in King County Superior Court on Thursday morning.  Many of the cases involved charging insurance companies for surgeries that never happened.

Welling, who owned of Alpine Surgical Service in Shoreline, billed five insurance companies over $4.1 million for work he never did between 2004-2011, according to state insurance investigators. Out of those claims, he received $461,000 from the companies.

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State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said that one of the reasons Welling was able to keep the scheme going for so long was that he never challenged companies that didn't pay.

“He’d just send them the bills and hope they’d pay," Kreidler said in a statement.

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Welling was not a doctor but would present himself as one when billing insurance companies. The patients who supposedly had surgeries done by Welling, but they never happened.

Welling's sentencing date will be scheduled later.

 

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