Pain doctor from Arkansas suspended by 2 states

A Sherwood anesthesiologist who has been accused of overprescribing pain medication in Arkansas is facing similar accusations in Alaska, where his medical license was suspended May 6.

In response to the action taken in Alaska, the Arkansas State Medical Board issued an emergency order May 19 suspending Dr. Mahmood Ahmad's license -- despite the board's 2015 agreement to drop overprescribing and improper record-keeping allegations against him in return for his promises to pay the board's investigative costs and submit to an audit of patient records at his United Pain Care clinic.

Meanwhile, Ahmad is facing a federal trial in Little Rock beginning Sept. 12. The nonjury trial before U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. will focus on the amount of civil monetary penalties to be assessed against Ahmad for 121 violations of federal record-keeping laws from Jan. 27, 2012 through May 30, 2013, also concerning painkiller prescriptions. The government contends he is liable for up to $10,000 for each violation, for a total of $1.21 million.

On May 2, Moody found that Ahmad was liable for the violations in connection with United Pharmacy's purchases of controlled substances during the 16-month period.

The pharmacy, which Ahmad owned, was located in the same building as his clinic at 7481 Warden Road in Sherwood. But Ahmad has filed a cross-complaint alleging that pharmacists he hired to manage the pharmacy were exclusively responsible for record-keeping and should have to pay whatever penalties are assessed. A second phase of the trial is set for February to address who must pay the penalties.

The Alaska Dispatch News reported that on Thursday, the first day of a hearing in Anchorage at which Ahmad was challenging the Alaska suspension, angry parents of some of his patients showed up to protest his prescribing methods. The report said Tracy Jones, the mother of a 22-year-old woman who died from an overdose of prescribed pain medication in March 2015, shook a pill bottle containing the ashes of her daughter as Ahmad walked by.

"Go back to Arkansas! One way, please! You are killing our kids," she shouted, according to the News. The paper said the death of Courtney Jones hasn't been tied to Ahmad, and the state hadn't presented evidence as of Thursday that he is responsible for injuries of patients who visited his one-man clinic in Anchorage, also called United Pain Care.

The paper reported that he flew up from Arkansas to see patients at the clinic just a few days each month.

Kevin O'Dwyer, attorney for the Arkansas Medical Board, said Friday that since Ahmad entered a consent order with the board on Feb. 6, 2015, with which he complied, the board hadn't had any contact with him until it learned of the Alaska suspension and imposed the emergency suspension that prevents him from practicing in Arkansas at least until a hearing scheduled for Aug. 4.

Little Rock attorney Tim Dudley, who is representing Ahmad in his federal case in Arkansas, was out of town and unavailable for comment Friday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens, a spokesman for the office that is suing Ahmad in the Eastern District of Arkansas, said Thursday that he couldn't answer questions about how the Alaska case may affect Ahmad's federal case.

In a lawsuit the government filed April 2, 2015, the allegations against Ahmad center on record-keeping, noting that the pharmacy failed to indicate the date it received Schedule II controlled substances, as well as the quantity received. It also alleges the pharmacy was missing two Drug Enforcement Administration order forms documenting the receipt of controlled substances and that it failed to maintain the forms for two years.

The pharmacy also lacked complete and accurate dispensing and receiving records for several controlled substances classified as Schedule III through Schedule V narcotics, the complaint says, citing 10 discrepancies found during an audit of 11 controlled substances.

Ahmad said last year that most of the complaints made to the Arkansas Medical Board that resulted in its investigation of him were from pharmacists who were unhappy that his clinic had its own pharmacy. He said then that he had closed the pharmacy and attended a board-recommended course on prescribing pain medication.

One complaint to the Arkansas board was from a 59-year-old woman who said her husband had been overmedicated and blamed the medicine for his May 3, 2012 suicide.

In the administrative hearing in Alaska, Ahmad on Friday disputed allegations that he ran a "pill mill," saying he has refused to see dozens of patients since he began operating in the state in 2015, the News reported. Some of those would not meet with him as planned or take urine tests he requires, he said.

On Thursday, the medical director for the University of Washington Center for Pain Relief testified as an expert witness that doses prescribed by Ahmad were several times too high and potentially lethal, the paper reported.

"He prescribed medication known to kill thousands of people in our country without taking the proper safeguards," the News quoted the director, Brett Stacey, as saying. Ahmad's attorneys suggested that the board's investigation of Ahmad wasn't thorough and only focused on one part of his caseload.

The paper reported that two pharmacists also testified Thursday about patients who came to their pharmacies seeking refills for abnormally high doses of oxycodone and methadone that had been prescribed by Ahmad. The pharmacists said they refused to fill the prescriptions. One of them testified that after several visits from patients of Ahmad, he decided he would never fill any prescriptions issued by Ahmad.

A retired investigator for Alaska testified that Ahmad wasn't registered to access the Alaska Prescription Drug Monitoring database, where "he would have learned some of his patients were already receiving controlled substances from other providers," the News reported. It said the witness testified that Ahmad saw 179 patients during a three-day visit to the state in December.

Metro on 05/31/2016

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