Heart doctor committed fraud by implanting unneeded pacemakers, jury rules
The jury convicted
Chalhoub was charged with performing heart procedures that were not medically necessary and then having bills submitted for the surgeries to Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance carriers between
Chalhoub implanted about 230 pacemakers while working at Saint
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Evidence showed dozens of the procedures were not medically necessary, the release said.
Several patients testified that Chalhoub pressured them into having pacemakers implanted, telling some they might die without the procedure even though the diagnosis he gave was for a non-fatal condition, the government said.
However, Chalhoub continues to maintain his treatment decisions were appropriate, said his attorney,
The evidence showed different doctors can reach different medical decisions in good faith, True said.
Defense attorneys will ask U.S. District Judge
If
The charge against Chalhoub grew out of the government's larger investigation of practices at Saint
The hospital and doctors who worked there were accused in lawsuits of performing hundreds of unjustified heart procedures before a
Defense attorneys argued in court documents that the cardiac procedures Chalhoub performed were appropriate and that he acted in good faith.
"Prosecutors, judges, and juries are poorly suited to second-guess medical decision making," defense attorneys said in one motion.
Prosecutors, however, said that Chalhoub knowingly implanted pacemakers in patients who didn't need them.
Saint
More than 300 people filed lawsuits over alleged improper heart procedures at Saint
Some cases were dismissed, but ultimately, about 180 people reached confidential settlements with doctors and the hospital, Poppe said.
In one case that went to trial, a jury in
Chalhoub told Wells in
The defendants in the case, Saint
Another doctor who once worked at Saint
The maximum sentence for Chalhoub would be 10 years. He is to be sentenced in August.
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