乌鸦传媒

A former ob/gyn from Chesapeake, Virginia has been for performing medically unnecessary surgeries on his patients for more than a decade, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week.

The sentence was levied after a jury convicted Javaid Perwaiz, MD, on 52 counts of healthcare fraud and other charges tied to his performance of irreversible hysterectomies, improper sterilizations, and other unwarranted procedures.

Court records and evidence presented at trial showed that the former physician executed a scheme to defraud health insurance programs from at least 2010 to 2019, the DOJ said. As a result, Perwaiz caused nearly $21 million in losses to private and government payers for unnecessary surgeries and procedures.

The DOJ added that, in many cases, Perwaiz, approximately 71, would falsely tell his patients that they needed surgery because they had cancer or in order to avoid cancer. Many unnecessary surgeries were performed within days of false diagnoses, the agency said.

"Motivated by his insatiable and reprehensible greed, Perwaiz used an arsenal of horrifying tactics to manipulate and deceive patients into undergoing invasive, unnecessary, and devastating medical procedures," said Raj Parekh, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in a statement. "These fraudulent and destructive surgeries caused irreversible damage to the victims. In many instances, the defendant shattered their ability to have children by using fear to remove organs from their bodies that he had no right to take."

Evidence further showed that Perwaiz falsified records for obstetric patients in order to induce their labor early and ensure he would be reimbursed for their deliveries. This action was taken prior to the recommended gestational age that minimizes risk to both mother and baby, the DOJ said.

Additionally, Perwaiz violated the 30-day waiting period that Medicaid requires for elective sterilizations by submitting backdated forms, the agency noted. He also billed insurance companies hundreds of thousands of dollars for diagnostic procedures that he didn't actually perform.

At the time of his conviction in November 2020, 乌鸦传媒 reported that Perwaiz was arrested a year prior after FBI agents discovered the unnecessary procedures he had been performing. Perwaiz -- who had practiced in Virginia since the 1980s -- previously faced a conviction for felony tax fraud in the 1990s, as well as earlier accusations of performing unnecessary hysterectomies that led to his firing from a hospital, .

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