A note on the door of the clinic says it will reopen September 12. 

But Ibsen says he will not prescribe pain medications — and would feel ethically obligated to treat the pain if he met with the patients. 

“I’ve got to make myself totally unavailable,” he said. “I can’t see pain patients unless I’m safe.” 

In June, a state hearing examiner rejected charges from the Montana Board of Medical Examiners alleging over-prescribing by Ibsen for nine patients; but the matter still awaits final adjudication from the board. 

The examiner said Ibsen’s only violations involved record-keeping, and recommended six months of probation for Ibsen’s license, plus corrective action. 

But despite what appears to be vindication of the drug charges, Ibsen said Friday he’s “terrified” by the current “regulatory hostility” in the state and by the arrest of Dr. Chris Christensen, a Florence doctor charged last week with 400 felonies. 

Christensen’s office was raided by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in 2014, and his license was suspended thereafter, before being recently restored in a probationary status. 

“They reinstated Dr. Christensen’s license, and 10 days later the authorities came to arrest him,” he said. 

Ibsen sees that as a trap and suggested he’s afraid he might be next. 

He said that two years ago, agents with the DEA told him he risked not only his license but also his freedom for prescribing “to patients like these.” 

Ibsen, formerly an emergency physician at St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena, has become an advocate for people with chronic pain, and a critic of the medical establishment’s treatment of those with pain. 

He has recorded testimony of numerous patients who say they’ve been given a runaround from physicians, were treated like criminals, and came to him in desperation. 

He says he’s helped more than 1,000 patients — many of them “pain refugees” from other doctors, including Christensen — wean themselves from opiates (many by using medical marijuana); others, he says, remain on medications so they are able to lead functional lives. 

He said prosecutors in Florida are seeking the death penalty for a doctor facing charges similar to that of Christensen, and he finds the turn of events terrifying and exhausting. 

“In Montana it’s just not safe to prescribe any pain pills to anybody,” he said. “I think the stakes have become higher, and my well-being is at stake.” 

Ibsen said he too thought Christensen was a criminal when he first heard of the raid of his office by the DEA and suspension of his license in 2014. 

But he changed that view as many of Christensen’s patients came to him. 

“When I started following his patients, I saw that he was doing the right thing,” he said. “And I’m probably the only one who would know that.” 

He said that genetically, some patients metabolize the drugs much more quickly, and may need as much as 10 times the normal dosage for pain medication to be effective. 

That explains some of the reports of Christensen prescribing seemingly large amounts of pills, he said. 

Ibsen said the stress of the clinic hours, the complexity of the pain patients, the financial hardship, and the fear for his freedom has led him to this point. 

“I’m fried, he said. “I ‘m just basically melting after seeing 50 pain patients. It’s exhausting and I don’t know that I’m doing anybody any good by continuing the process. I might just be enabling a sick system to continue itself.” 

Ibsen has long maintained — and several patients have agreed — that for many he is the only doctor left in the community willing to prescribe opioids. He said many of them will be in crisis, and possibly seek medications illegally. 

“Pain patients are going to be in misery,” he said. “They were in misery when they came to me.” 

He says he’s told them for some time he cannot maintain the pace of seeing pain patients while losing money. 

“The more I work, the more broke I get,” he said. 

He said that Thursday, he and his staff met to discuss the issue: “They let me know in no uncertain terms how stressed they are, how afraid they are, how overwhelmed they are from the flood of pain patients that have come to them,” he said. 

Despite his commitment to no longer prescribe opioids for chronic pain patient, he said he hopes the clinic will “re-boot” after the hiatus.