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SALT LAKE CITY — The former owner of a Salt Lake medical equipment company is going to prison for filing false Medicare claims for power wheelchairs in a scheme known as "chiseling."
A federal judge has sentenced Jacob J. Kilgore, 36, to five years behind bars. The Fruit Heights man must also pay $4 million in restitution over the next eight months.
Kilgore owned Orbit Medical, a Utah- and Indiana-based supplier of medical equipment that specialized in power wheelchairs.
Kilgore admitted that he told sales reps to falsify records — including doctors' prescriptions and chart notes — to make it look like patients qualified for wheelchairs when they did not, a process known as "chiseling." He installed software that allowed them to electronically chisel documents from doctors to make it appear that patients met Medicare requirements.
