PITTSBURGH – Acting United States Attorney Troy Rivetti announced today that the United States has finalized a Settlement Agreement with James L. Luketich, M.D., University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (“UPMC”), and University of Pittsburgh Physicians (“UPP”), to resolve the lawsuit the United States filed against those Defendants in September 2021.
As part of that Settlement Agreement, Dr. Luketich, UPMC, and UPP agreed to pay $8.5 million to the United States to resolve the claims against them. The Defendants also agreed to create and effectuate a Corrective Action Plan for Dr. Luketich, and to submit to a year-long, third-party audit of Dr. Luketich’s physician fee services billings to Medicare. Pursuant to the Settlement Agreement, UPMC, in turn, has the ability to request information, guidance, assurance and/or an advisory opinion from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human Services regarding certain Medicare regulations pertaining to the types of surgeries at issue in the case.
The United States’ lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. 3729, et seq., and was based on a two-year investigation into allegations originally brought by Jonathan D’Cunha, M.D., a former UPMC surgeon. In its Complaint, the United States alleged that Dr. Luketich – the longtime chair of UPMC’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery – regularly performed as many as three, complex surgical procedures at the same time, failed to...
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