Former Walla Walla surgeon will pay more than $1 million
By Terry Murry on Wednesday, April 26th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
SPOKANE – Former Providence St. Mary Medical Center physician Jason A. Dreyer agreed Monday to pay $1,174,849 to resolve allegations that he performed medically unnecessary neurosurgery procedures that he billed to federal health care programs. The joint settlement is between Dreyer, the United States, and the state of Washington.
Between 2013 and 2018, Dreyer was employed as a neurosurgeon at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Walla Walla, owned and operated by Providence Health and Services Washington. In April 2022, Providence agreed to pay $22,690,458 to resolve allegations that it fraudulently billed federal health care programs for medically unnecessary neurosurgery procedures performed by Dreyer and Daniel Elskens, another former Providence neurosurgeon.
In the settlement agreement, Providence admitted that, while Dreyer was employed at the hospital concerns were received that Dreyer was endangering the safety of his patients. Providence also admitted in the agreement that Dreyer was permitted to resign without being reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank or the Washington State Department of Health.
After resigning from Providence, Dreyer was employed between May 2019 and November 2021 by Multicare Health Systems to provide neurosurgery services at Deaconess Hospital and Multicare Rockwood Clinic, both in Spokane.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington, both Providence and Multicare paid Dreyer based on a productivity metric through which he was paid more for performing more surgeries and for surgical procedures of greater complexity. The settlement resolved allegations that, while employed by Multicare, Dreyer caused false or fraudulent billing to federal health care programs by performing medically unnecessary procedures that did not meet federal and state reimbursement requirements.
As part of the settlement, Dreyer entered into an exclusion agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. As part of this agreement, the defendant agreed to be excluded from participating in federal health care programs nationwide for at least nine years before he can request reinstatement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Despite Monday’s settlement, Spokane attorney William A. Gilbert says he continues to work on the class action suit against Dreyer, Elskens and Providence St. Mary Medical Center.
