Neurologist tops N.M. prescription pill monitoring list
Posted at: 02/02/2012 9:51 PM
| Updated at: 02/02/2012 11:06 PM
By: Gadi Schwartz & Peter St. Cyr, 4 On Your Side
Prescription painkillers are legal, often easy to get, and statistics show they are more deadly than heroin, cocaine and even car crashes.
Over the last decade, New Mexico has consistently led the nation in overdose fatalities with a majority of those deaths caused by prescription medication.
Throughout our 4OYS investigation, addicts from all walks of life, all age groups, and from every corner of the state told us their addiction began with legally prescribed controlled substances like Oxycontin, Percocet, and even Fentanyl patches.
Many of those addicts described a practice known as doctor shopping, where they visit different physicians’ offices to try and get new prescriptions for pain pills.
In order to stem practices like doctor shopping, the State of New Mexico has instituted a tracking system known as the Prescription Monitoring Program.
This program allows the state, as well as medical professionals, to keep tabs on what medications are being prescribed to patients.
In January, 4OYS filed a public records request for the top 25 prescribers of controlled substances in 2011.
The documents showed the number two spot on the list went to a license issued by the Drug Enforcement Agency and shared by 540 residents at the University of New Mexico Medical School.
That’s not surprising since many of the residents work inside the region’s only Trauma 1 hospital.
The total number of prescriptions credited to UNM were nothing compared to the number of prescriptions written by Las Cruces Neurologist Dr. Pawan Kumar Jain.
Millions of doses
According to the Prescription Monitoring Program, Dr. Jain, who specializes in pain management, prescribed between 220,000 to 280,000 doses per month or over 3 million doses - 645,000 more than all of UNM’s medical residents combined.
After an in-depth review of the list, the 4OYS team traveled to Las Cruces to ask Dr. Jain about the high number of prescriptions.
When initially questioned about his position on the list Dr. Jain told 4OYS he is the only doctor who is still prescribing narcotics in the area.
He claimed other doctors had quit because they fear investigations that might lead to their medical licenses being revoked.
After looking at the state-issued list himself, Dr. Jain told 4OYS the reported numbers must be wrong.
“Impossible,” Jain said. Dr. Jain claimed he only sees 20 patients a day – or 400 per month – including patients from around the state.
“They are coming from everywhere, even El Paso – nobody prescribes there,” Dr. Jain said. “I have patients from Portales, Roswell, they all come here – nobody prescribes.”
Dr. Jain said the dosages attributed to him in November 2011 are wrong because he traveled out of the country for twenty days.
But investigators at the Board of Pharmacy, who checked the numbers again, said those are the numbers that were reported by pharmacies across the state.
‘We test them’
4OYS asked Dr. Jain if he might be over prescribing medication, but he said his patients only get one script per month, and that he has refused to give prescriptions to patients he determined were addicted or doctor shopping.
“No I’m very controlled,” Jain said. “When I cut them [off] they either fire me or they go somewhere else,” Dr. Jain said.
He also told 4OYS he was aware some of his patients made appointments with him only after another doctor stopped writing them prescriptions.
“Those physicians stop prescribe narcotic[s] to them, and I ask him [them] why he refuse,” Jain said. “We don’t go out monitoring who is doing what, [a] patient come[s] in here and say[s] I’ve got pain, we test them, some are genuine patient[s], and in my practice, patient[s] can not come just from the street.”
Monitoring the numbers
Shortly after KOB’s investigative team returned to Albuquerque, Dr. Jain called the newsroom and asked the station not to broadcast the interview.
Later, KOB received a request from Dr. Jain’s lawyer who insisted the state’s tracking numbers were inaccurate.
Once again, 4OYS checked with the Board of Pharmacy to determine if there were any miscalculations in their official reports.
“I have gone through the numbers here and it appears as though the numbers are correct,” Board of Pharmacy Executive Director William Harvey said.
Dr. Jain’s attorney Jose R. Coronado also asked that the story not air because the prescription monitoring program is voluntary.
Harvey said that information is wrong and reporting is mandatory across the state.
Dr. Jain’s attorney also said the number of doses reported included medications for asthma, hypertension, cholesterol and antibiotics.
The state said that claim is also false.
Harvey said the monitoring program only tracks medications that can be abused or used to get high with.
“We don’t track your heart medications, we don’t track your diabetes medications,” Harvey said. “We are tracking -- through our monitoring program - only controlled substances.”
New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department Superintendent J. Dee Dennis Jr. said his office has referred Jain’s tracking reports to other agencies including the Medical Board for further review.
“It concerns us,” Dennis said. “We have referred that to them to make sure his prescriptions are in line with the services he is providing.”
Top 25 N.M. doctors for prescription medication
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