A former Chesapeake doctor was sentenced to 59 years in prison after a jury convicted him on 52 counts of healthcare fraud and other charges arising from his performance of irreversible hysterectomies, improper sterilizations, and other medically unnecessary surgeries and procedures on his patients over a decade. According to court records and evidence presented at trial and at sentencing, Javaid Perwaiz, approximately 71 years old, an obstetrician-gynecologist (OB/GYN) who practiced in Hampton Roads since the 1980s, executed a scheme to defraud health insurance programs between at least 2010 and 2019.
During that period, Perwaiz caused approximately $20.8 million dollars in losses to private and government healthcare insurers for irreversible hysterectomies and other surgeries and procedures that were not medically necessary for his patients. In many instances, Perwaiz would falsely tell his patients that they needed the surgeries because they had cancer, or to avoid cancer, in order to induce them to agree to the surgeries. Many of the surgeries occurred within days of the false diagnoses.
The evidence also demonstrated that Perwaiz falsified records for his obstetric patients so that he could induce their labor early, prior to the recommended gestational age that minimizes risk to the mother and baby, to ensure he would be reimbursed for the deliveries. Perwaiz also violated the 30-day waiting period Medicaid requires for elective sterilizations by submitting backdated forms to falsely make it appear as if he had complied with the waiting period. Perwaiz billed insurance hundreds of thousands of dollars for diagnostic procedures that he only pretended to perform at his office.
