LOS ANGELES – The former owner of a Long Beach medical supply company was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $1.5 million in restitution for his role in a scheme to provide unnecessary power wheelchairs to Medicare patients, according to officials.
U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez. sentenced Akinola Afolabi, 55, of Long Beach.
Afolabi was the owner and president of Emmanuel Medical Supply, which sold durable medical equipment. Afolabi provided medically unnecessary power wheelchairs and other medical equipment to Medicare beneficiaries, and submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare for this equipment.
Officials said Afolabi admitted that he paid “marketers” to obtain Medicare beneficiary information that he used on the false claims.
Afolabi admitted that prescriptions for the equipment and related medical documents were fraudulent, and that some of the beneficiaries did not even receive the wheelchairs or other medical supplies that were the subject of bills submitted to Medicare.
From June 2006 through September 2009, Afolabi submitted approximately $2,668,384 in fraudulent claims to Medicare for power wheelchairs and related services, and Medicare paid approximately $1,490,532 on those claims.