NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Chesapeake OB-GYN Dr. Javaid Perwaiz did more surgeries than other area OB-GYNs. That’s according to a data expert with Optima Health who testified in the doctor’s federal healthcare fraud trial Monday.
Josh Longe, who is a data analytics manager, testified Monday that Perwaiz’s patients were four times more likely to have surgery than those with area OB-GYNs. Longe calculated Optima’s insurance claims at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Longe also told the jury that Perwaiz’s patients were 112 times more likely to have hysteroscopies than other doctors. The procedure looks inside a woman’s uterus.
The FBI seized Perwaiz’s hysteroscopy tool when they raided his Chesapeake business last year. The device was sent to the expert to look at. On Monday in court, Longe testified that Perwaiz’s scope was broken.
Prosecutors believe the longtime doctor did the procedures anyway despite the broken tool, and then billed insurance companies. They also allege that Perwaiz used the hysteroscopy findings to take more women into surgery.
Many of those surgeries took place at Bon Secours Ambulatory Center at Harbour View in Suffolk.
Jean Kennedy is a retired nurse who worked at Harbour View. She says Perwaiz also had more surgeries lined up than other doctors.
“It was busy and stressful,” Kennedy told the court.
Kennedy says many times Perwaiz would use two or three operating rooms at the same time and bounce from one to the other.
“It was chaotic,” Kennedy added. “We didn’t have a set schedule. All of his patients would arrive at the same time.”
Kennedy and other staff members dubbed days the OB-GYN worked at Harbour View a “Perwaiz-a-thon”
“Frequently, Dr. Perwaiz would fill out post operating charts as we were still prepping the patients for surgery,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy told the jury filling those charts out allowed him to move on to the next surgery as soon as he was finished.
“He had his mind made up what he was going to do and what he was going to find,” Kennedy added.
Kennedy says she and others went to supervisors and administrators to voice concerns about Perwaiz, but nothing ever changed.
“Generally, the majority of his patients did not know what they were having done,” said retired Harbour View nurse Carol White. “They were just told to show up for surgery.”
White worked as a pre- and post-operation nurse at Harbour View.
“It was rare for a patient for any other doctor not to know why they were there,” White added.
White told the jury that many times what was written down as the patient’s symptoms for surgery didn’t match what the patient would say the day of. She added that many of the Perwaiz’s patients had more than one surgery.
Prosecutors say Perwaiz is a part-owner of the Harbour View surgery center. His picture hung in the lobby.
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