PITTSBURGH (TNS) — The chairman of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery systematically billed for unnecessary surgeries or surgeries he didn’t perform, the federal government said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court.
Dr. James Luketich, who practices at UPMC Presbyterian-Shadyside, was named as the defendant in the complaint, along with UPMC and University of Pittsburgh Physicians.
The U.S. suit, based on a two-year investigation into allegations originally brought by a former UPMC doctor under the False Claims Act’s whistleblower provisions, alleges that Dr. Luketich and UPMC submitted hundreds of false claims for payment to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health benefit programs over the past six years.
The suit says Dr. Luketich 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.
Those practices violate the statutes and regulations governing doctors and hospitals, including those that prohibit “teaching physicians” such as Dr. Luketich from performing and billing for “concurrent surgeries,” according to the suit.
The federal complaint accuses Dr. Luketich of violating the standard of care and the patients’ trust and heightening the risk of complications for patients.
The allegations were initially filed in federal court under seal in 2019 by Dr. Jonathan D’Cunha, the former head of the lung transplant program at UPMC.
The U.S. attorney’s office initially filed notice last month that it was intervening in Dr. D’Cunha’s suit and said it would litigate specific allegations under the False Claims Act.
UPMC and Dr. Luketich’s lawyer, Efrem Grail, denied the allegations. Mr. Grail said that “ Dr. Luketich is confident that they are wholly incorrect, and we will vigorously defend against them.”
