Joseph J. Kubacki, the former chair of the Temple University School of Medicine ophthalmology department, was charged Tuesday with fraud and making false statements in health-care matters in a 144-count indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice. Kubacki, a pediatric eye specialist, is accused of falsely claiming between 2002 and 2007 to have provided more than $1.5 million in services to patients at a clinic run by the ophthalmology department. The indictment says Kubacki, who had an office at Temple University Hospital, made notations in the charts of patients, seen by other doctors, indicating that he also had seen and evaluated those patients — when he hadn't. In some cases, he wasn't even in town when the patients were seen.
