PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - A whistleblower lawsuit against UPMC that was thrown out back in 2018 has been reinstated by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the original lawsuit filed was in 2012 by three former UPMC employees.
The whistleblowers in the lawsuit claimed that UPMC neurosurgeons exaggerated the number of surgeries they performed and also conducted unnecessary procedures in order to increase referrals to the hospital starting back in 2006.
"With all this smoke, a fire is plausible. So this case deserves to go to discovery," Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Bibas wrote in the conclusion of the court’s opinion issued on December 20th. "Once the discovery is in, it may turn out that there is no fire. We do not prejudge the merits. But this is exactly the kind of situation on which the Stark and False Claims Acts seek to shed light. We will thus reverse the District Court’s dismissal and remand for further proceedings."
The lawsuit was originally thrown out by a U.S. District Court Judge in 2018.
In September 2019, a three-judge panel ruled that the lawsuit did have merit and ordered that the lawsuit be reinstated.