Three physicians in the last week have faced lawsuits surrounding the prescription of controlled substances.
The three suits:
1. Manchester, Tenn., physician David Florence, DO, agreed to be permanently barred from prescribing schedule II and most schedule III controlled substances. Dr. Florence was alleged to have prescribed controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose. He was also alleged to have failed in properly supervising advanced practitioners.
2. Oxford, Conn.-based physician Marc Legris, MD, was hit with a $10,000 fine for using another physician's name and Drug Enforcement Agency registration number to prescribe controlled substances to a relative. The state's Medical Examining Board also voted unanimously to reprimand Dr. Legris' medical license. He was also ordered to take a course in ethics and to practice under supervision.
3. A New York anesthesiologist admitted to using his medical license to buy prescription oncology medication to sell for profit. While operating his medical practice in Elmwood, N.J., 53-year-old Jon Paul Dadaian, MD, used his medical license to buy prescription drugs, primarily, cold-chain biologic infusion medications.
Dr. Dadaian and two individuals who owned and operated businesses that were distributors of prescription drugs were able to get the drugs from pharmaceutical manufacturers’ authorized distributors and sell them.