PITTSBURGH — UPMC and James Luketich, MD, chair of UPMC’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, and UPMC’s practice group, have agreed to pay the federal government $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging fraud and risk of patient harm.
The lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Act in 2019 by surgeon Jonathan D’Cunha, MD, the current chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Mayo Clinic, Arizona, and formerly a cardiothoracic surgeon and vice chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UPMC.
The complaint was based on a two-year investigation into allegations that they knowingly submitted hundreds of false claims for payment to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health programs over the past six years.
The complaint also alleged that Luketich, who regularly performs as many as three complex surgical procedures at the same time, failed to participate in all the “key and critical” portions of his surgeries, and forced patients to endure hours of medically unnecessary anesthesia as he moved between operating rooms and to other patients.
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