500+ ex-patients sue Chesapeake Regional, alleging negligence, unnecessary surgeries

More than 500 plaintiffs have filed suit against Chesapeake Regional Medical Center and Chesapeake Regional Healthcare‘s current CEO and two former CEOs for $10 million each for negligence, alleging they enabled an OB-GYN to perform unnecessary medical procedures for nearly a decade.

The suit, filed Monday in Chesapeake Circuit Court, lists four counts against Chesapeake Hospital Authority — doing business as Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, Chesapeake General Hospital and Chesapeake Regional Medical Center — related to former doctor Javaid Perwaiz. The lawsuit alleges Perwaiz performed medically unnecessary surgeries including hysterectomies.

Perwaiz was convicted in federal court in Norfolk in 2020 on 52 counts of health care fraud and making false statements in health care matters and is serving a 59-year prison sentence. His arrest in November 2019 followed an FBI investigation spurred by a tipster who told the bureau that women were coming into the hospital for surgery unaware of why they were there, according to an FBI news release.

While Perwaiz was convicted of executing a scheme to defraud health insurance programs between at least 2010 and 2019, some plaintiffs in the civil suit filed Monday allegedly received treatment from Perwaiz dating back to the late 1970s. The lawsuit alleges Perwaiz performed “unnecessary and uninformed gynecologic and obstetric surgeries or procedures at CRMC” on the plaintiffs.

Chesapeake Regional said in a statement: “The [alleged actions] that form the primary basis for this lawsuit were taken by Dr. Javaid Perwaiz — who has never been an employee of Chesapeake Regional Healthcare (CRH). His actions, for which he is now serving a lengthy prison sentence, occurred without the knowledge of the organization. CRH strives to provide the best care to its patients, including through its medical staff physicians. Unfortunately, privacy laws prohibit us from commenting further on these allegations.”

Chesapeake Regional is also facing federal charges. In January, a federal grand jury indicted the health system for health care fraud and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and interference with government functions. The charges are related to alleged reimbursements from health care benefit programs for alleged unnecessary surgical procedures performed by Perwaiz. The federal government claims that CRMC received approximately $18.5 million in reimbursements from health care benefit programs for surgical and obstetric procedures Perwaiz performed at the facility from 2010 to 2019. Criminal health care fraud indictments against hospitals are rare, and the health system has previously categorized the indictment as “excessive overreach” by the federal government.

The civil suit filed Monday alleges CRMC received concerns about Perwaiz from other health care professionals several times since the late 1990s.

Following Perwaiz’s tax fraud convictions, the Virginia Board of Medicine revoked his license in 1996. When the board of medicine held a hearing to determine whether Perwaiz’s license should be reinstated, a local OB-GYN with privileges at CRMC told the board that two-thirds of Perwaiz’s surgeries were medically unnecessary, the lawsuit alleges. In December 1997, that doctor wrote a letter to hospital leadership again expressing concern, according to the lawsuit.

The CRMC neonatology group raised concerns about Perwaiz delivering babies early through elective induction or C-section without medical necessity “in or around 2008 or 2009,” the lawsuit alleges. In June 2015, a nurse manager wrote to the chief medical officer about doctors, including Perwaiz, scheduling delivery procedures early without supporting documentation as well as with false documentation, according to the complaint.

Nurses also told hospital officials that Perwaiz altered consent forms after patients had seen them in order to add procedures, the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit also claims that hospital staff raised concerns with executives about Perwaiz scheduling surgeries on an accelerated basis and misclassifying inpatient surgeries as outpatient procedures “to evade the heightened scrutiny and increased documentation that health care benefit programs require for inpatient services.”

Around 2016, CRMC’s internal metrics identified Perwaiz, who had privileges at the hospital but was not an health system employee, as a “top ten” performer, the lawsuit alleges. It alleges that CRMC executives, including then-President and CEO Peter Bastone, met with Perwaiz in 2015 and 2016, but his noncompliance continued. The complaint also alleges that the chief medical officer expressed concern about the inpatient surgery classifications with Reese Jackson, the health system’s current president and CEO.

Jackson assumed his chief executive role in December 2016. Bastone, also named as a defendant, led the hospital from 2013 to 2016, while defendant Wynn Dixon was CEO beginning in 2010.

Virginia Business was unable to immediately reach Bastone and Dixon for comment, but The New York Times reported that both said they were unaware of any misconduct by Perwaiz and never heard complaints about his work when they worked at the hospital.

The four counts listed in the civil complaint filed Monday are negligent hiring and retention; negligence, gross negligence and reckless disregard; vicarious liability; and wanton and willful disregard.

Along with $10 million each, the plaintiffs are seeking “pre-judgment interest beginning on each Plaintiff’s date of injury, an award of attorney fees and costs, and any such other relief this Court deems just and proper.”

Chesapeake Regional Healthcare includes the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center and more than 50 locations, as well as about 600 physicians serving Hampton Roads.