What Happens When Your Doctor Loses His Medical License?

A week or so ago I went to Family Med Center in Omaha, NE to talk with my doctor about my blood sugar and my family’s history of type 2 diabetes. I thought it was a bit odd that there was a sign on the door stating that many insurance providers were no longer paying for visits with Dr. Brown, but I didn’t see my insurance company, so I didn’t think too much about it. Then I saw the news last night.

KETV Channel 7 in Omaha, NE reported in an exclusive news story that Dr. Robert Brown (the doctor that apparently owns the clinic my family goes to) had his license to practice medicine suspended on February 1, 2007 by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services for 30 days and has been placed on probation for 3 years. Back in July, the DEA suspended Brown’s license to prescribe controlled substances.

According to KETV, Dr. Brown is charged with overprescribing pain medication to his patients without maintaining the proper records that would indicate a need for the pain medication at the levels prescribed. Two of those patients have since died from overdoses of pain medication. One unnamed 35-year old male patient had 755 nanograms of Oxycontin per milliliter in his system when he died. The complaint against Brown indicates the normal therapeutic range is 10 to 40 nanograms per milliliter.

Apparently Brown’s clinic was raided, and according to one unnamed source I spoke with, agencies took a number of patient files and all of his prescription samples. Dr. Brown kept many of his employees in the dark as to what was going on regarding his suspension, instructing them to tell patients that he was out of the office because he was on vacation. Reportedly, a number of insurance providers including Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Medicare, and Medicaid have already or will soon stop paying for visits to Brown’s clinic.

My source also tells me that Dr. Brown might have taken actions to attempt to seal the state court documents filed against him in an effort to keep the matter as private as possible. Reportedly, legal action may be coming from Brown’s attorneys against the state for allegedly releasing sealed documents regarding the matter.

Whatever steps have or will be taken to quiet the matter, Dr. Brown was the lead story on Channel 7’s 10:00 news and continues to be the lead story on their website, www.ketv.com. The scary thing is that my wife and I have been treated by Brown and his staff several times.

Brown will be attending a hearing next week in Washington, DC where he will make an attempt to regain his ability to prescribe controlled substances from the federal government. He should be able to return to his clinic and practice medicine again by early March. We will probably continue to go to Dr. Brown’s clinic, not because of Brown himself, but because Michelle and Jennifer, his two nurse practitioners are some of the best medical caregivers my wife and I have ever been treated by. Needless to say, if my back goes out again I will probably go somewhere else for my prescription, or just end up taking a lot of Motrin.