A doctor in Georgia is accused of performing eye surgeries on patients without valid medical reasons, including on one who became legally blind in her left eye afterward, federal prosecutors said.

For five years, Dr. Aarti D. Pandya, who runs a practice in Conyers, performed needless cataract extraction surgeries that occasionally injured patients and billed the government for the procedures, officials said. In other cases, she is accused of lying and telling patients they had the eye disease glaucoma to perform unnecessary tests on them that she also billed the government for, prosecutors said.

Now Pandya and her practice are paying $1.85 million to settle lengthy accusations against her after a whistleblower, her former employee, filed a lawsuit against her and Pandya Practice Group, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced in a Jan. 9 news release.

McClatchy News contacted attorneys representing Pandya for comment on Jan. 9 and didn’t immediately receive a response.

“Physicians who perform procedures and tests without a legitimate medical need place profits ahead of patients and subject those patients to unnecessary risk,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a statement.

Pandya caused the government to pay for unnecessary procedures and diagnostic tests by submitting false claims to health agencies including Medicare, prosecutors said. Doing so violates the False Claims Act.

Several of the diagnostic tests Pandya ordered “were...

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