Grand jury: ‘Dangerous’ prescribing at KY clinic played role in six overdose deaths
A conspiracy by a doctor and a Northern Kentucky clinic owner to illegally prescribe painkillers played a role in at least six overdose deaths, a federal grand jury has charged.
The two were aware of the deaths, but kept up the “dangerous prescribing” in part so they could get more money by billing Medicaid and other health programs for urine drug tests on patients, the indictment said.
The grand jury indicted the doctor, William Lawrence Siefert, 67, and Timothy Ehn, 48, on Wednesday.
They are charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and fraud.
Siefert, of Dayton, Ohio, also faces charges of distributing drugs not for a legitimate medial purpose and outside the scope of professional practice.
“Seifert and Ehn allegedly offered drug-seeking patients who should not have received opioids easy access to these dangerous controlled substances, then billed Medicaid for millions of dollars in medically unnecessary urinalysis testing related to these patients,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.
The most serious charges against the two carry a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Ehn, of Union, is a chiropractor. He owned the Northern Kentucky Center for Pain Relief, and Siefert worked for him as medical director, the indictment said.
The clinic was in Newport at one time but moved to Florence, according to the indictment.
Ehn and Siefert took part in a scheme to prescribe opioid painkillers and other drugs to people who should not have received such drugs, the indictment charged.
The clinic had policies against prescribing to people based on drug tests that showed they might be selling or abusing drugs, but Siefert allegedly wrote prescriptions to such patients anyway, with Ehn’s consent.
The indictment included the initials of six patients who died of opioid overdoses shortly after getting prescriptions from Siefert.
The two “ignored and overruled” clinic employees who raised concerns about the prescribing practices at the clinic, the indictment said.
The basis for the health fraud charges is that Ehn and Siefert allegedly had clinic employees submit bills for drug tests that weren’t necessary from at least January 2017 to July 2020.
