Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums, for communication between foot health professionals about podiatry and related topics.
You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members (PM), upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, earn CPD points and access many other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisments in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
State Police arrested a Logan County podiatrist on Wednesday on numerous drug charges for allegedly selling prescriptions for $90 apiece to patients he sometimes didn’t see.
Danny Lee Johnson, 57, of Anchor Road in Chapmanville, was charged with 38 felony counts of delivery of a controlled substance and one count of possession of a concealed weapon.
On April 20, State Police executed a search warrant on a home owned by people believed to be involved in “doctor shopping,” according to a criminal complaint filed in Logan County Magistrate Court
Those people told police that Johnson provided them with prescriptions for large quantities of Vicodin and Valium without conducting medical examinations for people who sometimes never showed up at his office. The going rate was $90 cash per person for a prescription, the complaint stated.
On Monday, troopers used an informant to buy four prescriptions, two for the informant and two for a family member who was not present, according to the complaint.
Police contacted an employee who told them Johnson was “delivering each day’s prescriptions prior to the start of each business day for those individuals who were scheduled for an office visit on said day.”
Johnson would also “prepare a patient record for said individuals indicating that [he] had examined the individuals prior to prescribing the controlled substances,” according to the complaint.
The employee also told troopers that a list of the next day’s patients was delivered to Johnson’s home after business hours so that he could prepare the next day’s prescriptions and records
On Tuesday, police witnessed Johnson park near his office building, hand a package to an employee and drive off, according to the complaint.
An employee told police that the prescriptions and medical records were for 36 people scheduled to come in the office that day, it stated.
When he was arrested on Wednesday, Johnson had a black fanny pack at his feet that contained a loaded .38-caliber revolver, according to another complaint.
Johnson was being held in Southwestern Regional Jail on $150,000 bond.
In 1995, Johnson’s medical license was placed on probation for two years for unprofessional conduct, according to the West Virginia Board of Medicine Web site.
Two years later, he settled a malpractice case for $100,000 in Logan County Circuit Court.
Chiropody and podiatry has a long historical association with the dishonest and criminally disgruntled. Hopefully they are the exception rather than the rule but always interesting. David Lowe who coined the term chiropody was a plagiarist as was the one of the original authors of American podiatry and some of the biggest health insurance frauds on record are down to podiatrists.
Maybe because we are workers who work below eye level of our clients and are thought by the general public to execise honesty and humility it is all the more shocking to find out we are like all other members of the species, and err.
It's even rumoured that we have our share of snake-oil salesmen too - and not all of them sell proprioceptive insoles either! But I did try to raise this point here - http://www.podiatry-arena.com/podiat...ead.php?t=2049 but for some reason the topic doesn't show up on the main board.
__________________
"citing an indisposition due to special circumstances"
The Herald Dispatch are reporting: Over-prescribing podiatrist loses license, faces prison time March 3, 2007
Quote:
A Logan podiatrist has forfeited his medical license and faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to running a pill mill.
Dan Johnson, 58, of Boone County pleaded guilty Tuesday in Logan County Circuit Court to one count of delivery of a schedule IV controlled substance.
Johnson was initially charged in May 2006 with 38 counts of delivery of a controlled substance. The charge he pleaded guilty to was for a prescription for the anxiety drug Xanax. As part of the plea agreement, the other 37 counts were dropped.
Investigators determined that over the past three years Johnson had written more than 50,000 prescriptions, most of them for hydrocodone. Most of the prescriptions were improperly prescribed, said Prosecuting Attorney Brian Abraham.
Johnson, who set up practice in Logan a few years ago, prescribed powerful pain medications intended to treat serious and life-threatening conditions to patients with such minor ailments as ingrown toenails or calluses, he said.
"What you have to remember is that he is a podiatrist," Abraham told The Logan Banner. "We believe that the vast majority of his prescriptions deviated from standard practice. He let some people stay on prescriptions for a number of years with no effective treatment."
Podiatrist faces 38 drug charges
Linear Mode
