Federal prosecutors have asked more former patients of Virginia gynecologist Javaid Perwaiz, who is accused of performing unnecessary surgeries on his patients, to come forward and retrieve their medical records.

Last week, 173 of his former patients approached the Justice Department to know if they had been subjected to invasive procedures without their knowledge and consent. The Justice Department set up a hotline for people to get in touch with the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI and also launched a website page tips.fbi.gov, NBC News reported.

The department also asked patients seeking their medical records to send a mail to usavae.perwaiz.medical.records@usdoj.gov with their full names and dates of service. However, they said not all details or records would be available.

"The website and the hotline are all specifically established to ensure that we're doing our very best to reach out to current and former patients regarding this case," a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office said. "We would like to hear from all current and former patients of Dr. Perwaiz."

Between 2014 and 2018, Perwaiz, 69, performed surgeries on 510 Medicaid beneficiaries, falsifying medical charts to carry out unnecessary surgical procedures including hysterectomies, tubal ligations and dilation and curettages, in order to defraud Medicaid and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employee Program and collect insurance kickbacks.

A hospital employee tipped the FBI in 2018 about the unnecessary surgeries Perwaiz was carrying out on his patients, prompting the FBI to investigate him. He was arrested Nov. 8 on one count each of health care fraud and making false statements relating to health care matters. He is being held at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail without a bond.

According to the FBI affidavit, Perwaiz has a history of performing unnecessary surgical operations.

He was under scrutiny since 1983, when he lost his hospital privileges at the Maryview Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, now known as Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center, due to "poor clinical judgment and for performing unnecessary surgeries," court documents said.

Two years later the Virginia Board of Medicine investigated him as he performed a dozen hysterectomies within one year which was contradictory to sound medical judgement.

"I suspect it's just the tip of the iceberg," Mario Stellute, a lawyer representing former patients of Perwaiz said. “Most of these women don't know whether they are one of the patients who had been getting medical surgeries that were unnecessary.”

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