Pain doctor in Kentucky charged in 5 deaths

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/21/pain-doctor-charged-in-5-deaths-in-ky/22134745/

Barb saw this particular pain doc for a couple years. I was a lot more impressed by this particular doc’s pt care than the doc that owned the clinic nor the doc that replaced him… shortly afterwards Barb left the clinic’s practice.  Dealing with chronic pain pts that are suffering from pain, depression, anxiety and other issues… are at a twice the risk of committing suicide.  SOOOO.. 5 pts committed suicide over a several year period.. in this country we have 40,000 commit suicide every year..  IT HAPPENS..

The fraudulent billing is nothing but “fluff charges”… the report is that Jamie was headed off to some sort of conference/seminar/medical convention and was rushing to make sure that all his pts had their needed medication.. and there was some sort of mis-communication to the individual/company that did the billing for the practice.  Fraudulent billing practices tend to be more routine and ongoing for more than THREE DAYS.

 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A pain doctor who promises on his website to help patients “return to a life they once knew” has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of illegally prescribing medications that resulted in the deaths of five patients.

Dr. Jaime Guerrero, who has offices in Louisville and Jeffersonville, Ind., was charged in a 32-count indictment with causing the deaths by issuing prescriptions for oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone for no medical purpose from 2009 through 2012.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Acting U.S. Attorney John E. Kuhn Jr. said in a statement that “physicians who recklessly prescribe narcotics must be held accountable, and where investigators and prosecutors believe they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that medically unnecessary narcotics caused a patient death, we will pursue those cases criminally.”

Dan Smoot, chief executive of Operation Unite, an Eastern Kentucky anti-drug organization, said the indictment “sends a message to doctors who … prescribe painkillers without a medical purpose that they are little different than drug traffickers.”

Guerrero didn’t respond to messages left at both of his offices or at his home, or to e-mails. But his attorney, Scott C. Cox, said: “I have known Dr. Guerrero for many years and I have known him to be a legitimate physician in every respect. He is board certified and has been a conscientious physician for many years, and we look forward to defending him.”

Guerrero, 47, who has operated a practice called Advanced Pain Management Center, also was charged with health care fraud after being accused of seeing more than 100 patients on three days in 2011, spending about three minutes with each one and billing for office visits at a higher rate than the service allowed. He also is accused of directing a staff member who isn’t licensed as a counselor to provide drug-education classes to patients.

Guerrero, who graduated from St. Xavier High School and Centre College, is a 1993 graduate of the University of Louisville medical school who did his residency in anesthesiology at U of L. He is licensed in good standing in Indiana and Kentucky.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration searched his offices at 1170 E. Broadway in Louisville and 1101 Spring St. in Jeffersonville in September 2012, confiscating his records.

One of his patients, Lee Bullock, told WAVE-TV then that Guerrero was treating him for degenerative disc disease and that he thought he was a very good doctor. “He monitors all his patients very close,” he told the station. “He does a lot of drug screens, urine test and pill counts.”

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