Doctor lied about cancer risk to give unnecessary hysterectomies, Virginia jury finds
For nearly a decade, prosecutors allege a doctor in Virginia conned unwitting patients into receiving unnecessary hysterectomies and altered women’s due dates so he could induce labor — all to bilk insurers out of millions of dollars.
Now he faces a lifetime in prison.
A federal jury on Monday convicted Dr. Javaid Perwaiz on 52 counts of health care fraud, making false statements and identity theft after a two-week trial and several days of deliberations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced in a news release.
“Doctors are in positions of authority and trust and take an oath to do no harm to their patients,” FBI Agent Karl Schumann said in the release. “With unnecessary, invasive medical procedures, Dr. Perwaiz not only caused enduring complications, pain and anxiety to his patients, but he assaulted the most personal part of their lives and even robbed some of their future.”
Perwaiz, a certified obstetrician-gynecologist, was indicted in November 2019 after a hospital employee tipped off investigators that he might be performing surgeries on “unsuspecting patients,” according to authorities.
It wasn’t his first encounter with the law.
According to investigators, Perwaiz has practiced in Hampton Roads, Virginia, since the 1980s. In 1982, court filings state he lost privileges at nearby a hospital in Portsmouth “due to poor clinical judgment and for performing unnecessary surgeries.” After an investigation by the state Board of Medicine, he was reportedly censored for poor record-keeping.
Perwaiz also pleaded guilty to tax evasion in the 1990s, resulting in him losing his medical license from 1996 to 1998, prosecutors said. He has additionally been sued in civil court for malpractice at least eight times.
The most recent scheme is alleged to have occurred between 2010 and 2019, court filings show.
During that time, prosecutors said, Perwaiz bilked private and public insurance providers using at least four means, including pushing up his patients’ due dates.
“He did so not for any medical reason, but to untruthfully make it appear as though these patients were beyond 39 weeks of gestation when he induced their labor,” court filings state.
Inducing labor ensured Perwaiz was the doctor who delivered the baby, prosecutors allege, thereby “minimizing the chances that his patients would spontaneously deliver at a time when the defendant was not already scheduled to be at the hospital where he had privileges.” It also meant he could bill insurers for the delivery.
Perwaiz also performed needless surgeries, including hysterectomies, on his patients without their consent or knowledge, according to court filings.
“Witnesses allege that many women who returned to Perwaiz for post-operative appointments did not know what surgery(ies) had been performed on them,” prosecutors said. “Witnesses also alleged Perwaiz routinely used the “C-word” (Cancer) to scare patients into having surgery.”
He’s also accused of billing insurers for in-office procedures he didn’t perform, such as hysteroscopies when his hysteroscope was broken. A hysteroscopy allows doctors to view inside a women’s uterus.
Prosecutors accused Perwaiz of additionally sterilizing some patients without waiting for 30 days after the patient agreed to the procedure, which is required by law. Sterilization is typically referred to as “tube-tying.”
At least 26 patients were named in the indictment, according to court filings.
Prosecutors said dozens of those former patients and several nurses testified against Perwaiz at trial, saying they still suffer from complications related to the unnecessary surgeries or that they complained about him to supervisors.
Court filings show the jury began deliberations on Nov. 4. Deliberations continued until they reached a verdict Monday.
Perwaiz was found guilty on 52 counts, according to court filings. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on March 31 and faces a maximum penalty of 465 years in prison.
