Pubdate: Thu, 30 Jan 2003
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2003 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Author: Kenneth A. Gailliard
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)

DRUG USERS TARGETED CLINIC, PATIENTS SAY

FLORENCE - Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center doctors often 
failed to adhere to established protocol regarding patient treatment, 
according to testimony Wednesday in federal court in Florence.

In addition, patients with insurance were targeted over those who paid 
cash, said Dr. Thomas Devlin, a former care center doctor.

Those with insurance received more testing to exploit the insurance, he said.

And doctors, including the center's owner and director, Dr. D. Michael 
Woodward, wrote prescriptions after cursory examinations.

Devlin testified Wednesday in the third day of a trial for three doctors 
from the defunct Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center.

Doctors Michael Jackson, Ricardo Alerre and Deborah Bordeaux face charges 
in a 93-count federal indictment.

The three, along with five other doctors and three of the center's staff 
named in the indictment, worked for varying durations between 1995 and 
2001, according to court records.

Those not facing trial have pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against 
Jackson, Bordeaux and Alerre.

Devlin and other witnesses Wednesday described instances when doctors 
repeatedly issued narcotics to patients.

Several admitted drug abusers said they targeted the pain center because of 
it's reputation for dispensing drugs. When questioned by defense lawyers, 
the patients said they lied or exaggerated their pain to obtain narcotics 
including Xanax, Lortab, Lorcet and OxyContin.

"Ninety-nine percent of the patients were prescribed a controlled 
substance," Devlin said. The first step, according to the center's 
protocol, was to prescribe Motrin, but he said that didn't happen often.

Devlin testified that, while "shadowing" Woodward, he wrote several 
prescriptions after Woodward gave cursory examinations to patients that 
usually lasted less than a minute.

He also wrote prescriptions based solely on what was recorded in a 
patient's record from a previous visit.

Gerald Ghent, a former patient from Lancaster who admitted abusing drugs 
for years before attending the center, said, "I went there because I could 
get drugs."

Ghent said he drove carloads of friends to the pain center at times. He was 
dismissed from the center after employees learned he had been obtaining 
drugs from other doctors. They also suspected he was buying pills from 
patients in the center's waiting room, he said.

He said he frequently lied about pain to get medicine. At one point he 
said, Alerre prescribed narcotics to his wife, who was about eight months 
pregnant.

Conway resident Kevin Larrimore said he started visiting the clinic after 
he was in an accident and continued going when he realized he could get 
drugs. He said he was seen by Jackson, Bordeaux, Alerre and Devlin.

By the time the center closed, he had been prescribed as much as 80 
milligrams of OxyContin, he said.

Ghent and Larrimore have pleaded guilty to charges related to selling 
controlled substances.

Prosecutors allege controlled substances were illegally distributed from 
the center between 1997 and 2001.

Investigators seized about 3,000 patients' records from the center.

The trial resumes today in Florence.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom