Photo: Pichsakul Promrungsee EyeEm/Getty Images
Dr. James Luketich, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and University of Pittsburgh Physicians have settled with the United States government over a whistleblower lawsuit, brought in September 2021, that alleged fraudulent billing and unsafe surgical practices.
Luketich, UPMC and UPP have agreed to pay $8.5 million to the Department of Justice to settle a lawsuit that was based on a two-year investigation into allegations originally brought by Dr. Jonathan D'Cunha, a former UPMC surgeon.
In its complaint, the U.S. alleged that 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 participate in all of the "key and critical" portions of his surgeries, and forced his patients to endure hours of medically unnecessary anesthesia time, as he moved between operating rooms and attended to other patients or matters.
According to the complaint, those practices amounted to violations of the statutes and regulations which prohibit "teaching physicians," like Luketich, from billing the United States for "concurrent surgeries."
In addition to the $8.5 million, the defendants also agreed to create a corrective action plan for Luketich, and to submit to a year-long, third-party audit of Luketich's physician fee services billings to Medicare.
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