The case was brought under the federal False Claims Act, which allows private parties to bring lawsuits on behalf of the government and collect a portion of any recovery. Luketich can return their focus to training young doctors to save lives without having to put up with baseless claims of fraud."įederal prosecutors intervened in the lawsuit in 2021. UPMC spokesperson Paul Wood said in a statement that it continues to believe that Luketich's practice complied with federal requirements but settled the case "to avoid the distraction and expense of further litigation."Įfrem Grail, Luketich's attorney, said he hoped the settlement would lead to clearer guidance on billing "so that universally respected surgeons like Dr. Jeffrey Dickstein of Phillips & Cohen, a lawyer for whistleblower Jonathan D'Cunha, said it "finally brings meaningful oversight of Dr. Attorney Troy Rivetti in Pittsburgh called the settlement "a just conclusion" to prosecutors' investigation. The settlement resolves a 2019 whistleblower lawsuit by a former UPMC doctor, claiming that UPMC regularly allowed James Luketich to book as many as three complex surgeries at the same time, going back and forth between patients, not participating in key parts of the surgeries, and sometimes keeping patients under unnecessary anesthesia.Īcting U.S. (Reuters) - The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the head of its cardiothoracic surgery department have agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle claims that they fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid for complex surgeries. Pittsburgh hospital, cardiothoracic surgeon have not admitted wrongdoing.Government said surgeon skipped key parts of surgeries, unnecessarily kept patients under anesthesia.
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