> The government office that fights Medicare fraud has put UPMC and one of its star surgeons on a “high-risk” list after determining that they pose a “significant risk to federal health care programs and beneficiaries.”

> U.S. officials took the action after Pittsburgh’s multi-billion-dollar health system settled a sweeping Medicare fraud case last month — but rejected signing an agreement that would put it or its renowned doctor under extra government oversight.

Well, that's ballsy.

Is this the surgeon that was running multiple surgeries at the same time?

Yep, that's him.

B..b..but UPMC is non-profit!! That means they are good, right?

Right?

No, they're health experts. Which means you have to trust them. No profit motives in this industry.

“profit” <> “excess revenue”

Frankly, as a UPMC For Life Complete Care member, the only people to lose will be us insurance members. The government is poking the bear. What would they like us to do If they kick UPMC out of Medicare?

Go to Death Trap General on the Northside and try and find new doctors and get new Prior Auths for all of our medications while Highmark continues to be unable to market a profitable product?

Highmark is out of Network and we don't want to go there anyways.

We like UPMC.

If I needed surgery, I would feel completely comfortable having Luketich perform it.

It really seems as though the two lovebird surgeons took revenge for him exposing their tryst.

What I don't understand is that Pennsylvania is a two party consent state. How are they not being prosecuted for recording Luketich's private conversations with his doctor and why would the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix hire both of them with the scandal and illegal act hanging over their heads?

believe you dropped this /s

you’re seriously defending an organization that treats its workers like shit and treats you like a product that needs to be quantified and marketed to??

Didn’t you hear him? The hospital whose board of directors is still run by actual MDs is death trap general.

they can be kicked out of medicare AND medicaid. That's probably at least 50% of their payers. Will it happen? No. but did they poke the bear by refusing to sign this? yes.

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UPMC broke the cardinal rule. Don’t steal from someone more wealthy than you.

"Prosecutors cited two instances in which they said people lost limbs because of Luketich’s actions."

The dude who's actions resulted in 2 people literally losing limbs?

Your defending.... this?

You deserve every down vote you're getting.

That’s on UPMC for not following government guidelines for Medicare and Medicaid and committing literal healthcare fraud. Unfortunately yes the patients suffer the most but that’s due to UPMC’s selfishness and greed, not the OIG doing their job.

Hi Luketich’s burner account! /hj

That's fairly common practice, the issue was moreso the people left in the room were not the usual qualified people to do so and also the amount of time spent outside of the OR resulting in longer anaesthesia thus higher risk to patients etc. UPMC patients sign an agreement which contains acknowledgment that the surgeon may/will perform other surgeries during theirs. The legality surrounding this agreement and the specific length of time etc was a main point of contention in this case and one of the factors that kept this case from going class action

Look into some of the shadiness and investigations into the clinic who hired them

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> It was the banging of residents in the parking lot

I thought he has chronic back pain that requires opioids? At least that's what was said in court.

Why isn't this person in prison? They're threatening to punish thousands of innocent people by breaking medicaire and medicaid, but the person who actually did wrong gets a strongly worded letter for a federal crime.

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The tape of Dr. Luketich's conversation about suboxone is still in litigation over whether it was illegal or not and whether there could be an "expectation of privacy" in the room where the talk happened, but it was ultimately irrelevant to the question of whether he violated the law/regulations by billing the government for surgeries when he was shuttling among them. He even tried to use the tape to keep the whistleblower from getting a share of the settlement, but was denied by a judge who said it had nothing to do with the case that settled.

It's a civil procedure

A civil proceeding is not what happens when people low enough income to need medicare commit fraud(and mayhem and probably sexual assault by the sounds of it, what an absolute psycho) just when a rich person does it I guess

Excuse me? ……. My PM is open feel free to share more.

Wait that wasn’t in any of the articles? I’ve been following this story VERY closely.

So does this mean that he can continue to run multiple surgeries at one time, in different buildings? Since UPMC didn't agree to sign an oversight agreement?

surgeon name?

Click the link or read the other comments.

It's in the article multiple times and also in the other comments multiple times.

Well yeah. A career's worth of hooking you the parking garage will wreck your back.

Well, they still had 3 others.