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Medical supply firm owners indicted in power wheelchair fraud ring

Compliance Monitor, December 29, 2004

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Three medical supply company owners were named in a federal grand jury's 43-count indictment last week that charges them with bilking Medicare out of more than $27 million through false billing for power wheelchairs, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

These latest indictments are part of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) program designed to bring down an alleged fraud ring involving power wheelchairs that has been operating throughout the southern and southwestern United States, the AP reports.

According to the jury's filing, the three owners-Anikeme B. Akpabot of Mesquite, TX; Okon Eyo Idiong of Southfield, MI; and Aniefiok Jimmy Eking of Houston-solicited patients and found physicians to obtain certificates of medical need, which are essential to Medicare's coverage of power wheelchairs.

Akpabot had already been indicted in February under the GAO's "Operation Roll Over." The new 43-count indictment includes Idiong and Eking for the first time and adds the charges of conspiracy and money laundering to what Akpabot previously faced, the AP reported.

Medicare pays approximately $5,000 for each power wheelchair it covers; it spent approximately $1 billion in 2003 covering them. Disproportionate coverage rates in the Houston area first alerted the government to a potential problem. A GAO official told the AP that 14% of Medicare's power wheelchair spending went to people in the Houston area even though only 1% of Medicare beneficiaries lived there.

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