Doctor accused of giving drugs that led to deaths of 6 men

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Herbal~Jah

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(CNN) -- A Massachusetts doctor and his nurse face charges that they conspired to distribute controlled substances, a practice that authorities claimed led to the deaths of six patients, according to a criminal indictment released Thursday.

Dr. Joseph Zolot and Lisa Pliner -- both of whom practiced in Needham, about 15 miles southwest of Boston -- appeared in a federal court Thursday. They will be charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute methadone, oxycodone and fentanyl, as well as seven counts for the distribution of controlled substances.




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http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/03/massachusetts.medical.deaths/index.html
 
You have to wonder if there's more to this story...

You have to wonder though, what if this Doctor truely was a "good" doctor and these certain patients that died really did require pain-pills for "pain." In that case it's not the Doctors fault if the person OD's on the medications, there is directions on the label for a reason..
On the other hand, even if he was giving them medication to patients that may or may not have been suspected drug addicts, how is it the doctors fault that they Overdosed on the meds? All he did was prescribe them... I wish they would stop prosecuting doctors who prescribe pain meds to people that OD on them, because it isn't the doctors fault.

Plus stories like this just make it harder for people that really do require pain meds to get them because every pain doctor I have met literally treats you like a drug-seeker even though your in real pain... its ridiculous..
 
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My family doctor was recently locked up in a federal prison for three years. The cops had been trying to get him for years for writing prescriptions, but they couldn't because he was doing it legally. The town that I am from is very small and of course the people in it are supposedly "God Faring" so they would tip off the police on him all the time. His patients would come and say they were in pain, and some were and some weren't, so he would treat them. This man was kind and compassionate so he did not want to see anyone suffer, and for that he was called all kinds of names, and harassed constantly. Well the charges that they got to finally stick were for defrauding the insurance companies, medicaid/medicare and worker's compensation. They estimated that he got approximately $555,000 from them. My point and his as well was that he did not personally do the billing, he had his receptionist send it to an out of area billing company and they did the rest. So how could they get him for defrauding anyone, it seems to me that the billing company and the receptionist were the ones that should have been charged. In my opinion they wanted his prescriptions gone so badly that they falsely charged/convicted this man. If you would like to look at more information on this case please google Dr. John C. Sharp from West Virginia. I would be interested in others opinions on this case.

Now I have a theory for the doctors and the dealers that are being charged for murder of someone that has overdosed. Why should they be charged for someone else's mistake. I could understand maybe charging a dealer with a drug crime such as distribution but not murder, and I do not think that a doctor should be charged if the medicine that was prescribed was within the medical guidelines and there was just medical problems to require this medicine.

My theory for this is, "If you were to sell me a gun and I went down the road afterwards and shot myself, should you be charged with my murder for selling me this gun?" Ok take away the gun and let's say it was a car that you sold me and I wrecked the car, should you be charged with it then? A drug is just like a car/gun, if used properly it is great and there are benefits to it in many ways, but if you abuse it or push it too far then someone is going to be hurt or killed. Even so, the person that is to blame for the death is the deceased himself. We all know the dangers of drugs, but we choose to do them anyway. I do not want anyone else held responsible if I decide to do too much and die. That would be my mistake, I know what I can and can't do and if I want to got to the edge no one else should be punished if I fall off.
 
Well the charges that they got to finally stick were for defrauding the insurance companies, medicaid/medicare and worker's compensation. They estimated that he got approximately $555,000 from them. My point and his as well was that he did not personally do the billing, he had his receptionist send it to an out of area billing company and they did the rest. So how could they get him for defrauding anyone, it seems to me that the billing company and the receptionist were the ones that should have been charged. In my opinion they wanted his prescriptions gone so badly that they falsely charged/convicted this man.
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You do not have to intentionally defraud medicare in order to be busted for fraud: you just have to really really piss them off. If they determine that your patient wasn't eligible for compensation, everything that you were reimbursed for that patient is considered money for services that were never provided. An example is the psychiatrist who orders psychotherapy for a patient that has early Alzheimer's. Even if the patient is physically present and participates and improves with the therapy, it is considered to never have happened because the patient does not have a functional brain. Again, they won't enforce such technicalities unless they do not like you.
 
And they did NOT like Doc. I believe that the main reason that they didn't was because he didn't bow down when they told him to cut everyone off of their pills. Jokes on the however because he may not be here right now, but there is no shortage either.
 
235360287471352662 said:
You do not have to intentionally defraud medicare in order to be busted for fraud: you just have to really really piss them off. If they determine that your patient wasn't eligible for compensation, everything that you were reimbursed for that patient is considered money for services that were never provided. An example is the psychiatrist who orders psychotherapy for a patient that has early Alzheimer's. Even if the patient is physically present and participates and improves with the therapy, it is considered to never have happened because the patient does not have a functional brain. Again, they won't enforce such technicalities unless they do not like you.
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Very good point here. I've read of several doctors (one in my area, the local sympathetic Pain Management Dr.) who have been recently busted for "medicare fraud" after pissing off the wrong people. Its a new tactic ...
 
Same in the UK, albeit with less resort to the federal pen. Every doctor who sticks their head above the dope parapet is liable to a hysterical witch hunt with every minute detail of their prescribing policies scrutinised by godfearing abstentionists. Princess Margaret's doctor found friends in high places of no use at all when she persisted in writing methadone prescriptions for the hoi polloi. As above, the implication was she did it for money. She rarely charged and her better healed patients paid far more for their non-addict treatments but the 'no smoke without fire' attitude persisted.

Nowadays, physicians know the consequences and drug users the doctor hasn't known since brith are sent packing. Thatcher's former chief medical adviser, dismissed when he was found to be shooting self-prescribed heroin four times a day, now campaigns for heroin on the British National Health Service. Times change, one hopes, but logistical and criminal trends now cause UK quality to be lower and prices higher than those paid by long-suffering US dependents. Philosophers can argue whether or not this is progress.
 
Oh come the shit on this isn't news this happens millions of times each day all over the country.
 
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