An appellate court said a 2012 lawsuit brought by three UPMC employees over allegedly unnecessary neurosurgery had merit and ordered it to be reinstated, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports.
What you should know:
1. Three former UPMC employees filed a lawsuit in 2012. They alleged UPMC's neurosurgeons inflated the number of spine procedures they did, while performing needlessly complex procedures to inflate their earnings and boost referrals to UPMC, beginning in 2006.
2. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2018 by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, then reinstated in September. UPMC appealed the reinstatement and was defeated twice.
3. The employees and whistleblowers are suing UPMC and its neurosurgeons for violations of the False Claims Act and anti-kickback laws.
4. In 2009, UPMC had the highest grossing neurosurgical department in the nation, with individual salaries hitting up to $4 million in some cases.
5. No attorney was available to comment to the Post Gazette.