The United States and State of Washington filed a Complaint in federal district court against MultiCare Health System, a Tacoma-based hospital and healthcare system that owns and operates MultiCare Deaconess Hospital (Deaconess) and MultiCare Rockwood Clinic in Spokane, alleging that MultiCare knowingly endangered patient safety and falsely and fraudulently billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal healthcare programs for spinal surgery procedures performed at Deaconess between 2019 and 2021 by Jason Dreyer, a former neurosurgeon. Between 2013 and 2019, Dr. Dreyer practiced at Providence St. Mary’s Medical Center in Walla Walla, Washington, a hospital owned and operated by Providence Health & Services (Providence). In 2019, amidst allegations that he was performing medically-unnecessary surgeries, harming patients, and falsifying diagnoses, Providence permitted Dr. Dreyer to resign.
The Complaint against MultiCare announced today alleges that, following Dr. Dreyer’s resignation from Providence, MultiCare hired him to perform neurosurgery services at Deaconess. The Complaint alleges that during MultiCare’s hiring process, it became aware of concerns and “red flags” about Dr. Dreyer and his surgical judgment from his time at Providence, but, recognizing that he was a “workhorse”, made the decision to hire him and allow him to begin seeing patients and performing surgery at Deaconess Hospital in July 2019. The Complaint further alleges that in October 2019, MultiCare recognized that Dr. Dreyer was performing a high volume of surgeries and generating significant revenue for MultiCare, and so placed Dr. Dreyer on an incentive compensation structure, meaning that the greater volume and complexity of surgeries performed by Dr. Dreyer, the more money he would make.
