Kentucky Clinic Raided, Doctor charged; Clinic Remains Open

 Care More Pain Management clinic is in Paintsville, Kentucky. I see nothing in the way of a decent response to its ongoing crisis. But quotes by an owner are worth a laugh. Apparently it's nothing more than a prescription "pill mill."

"For more than two years, until his Feb. 16 arrest, Dr. Richard Albert doled out prescriptions for narcotics like candy on Halloween night. He wrote them in the office for people who received only a cursory physical examination, or none at all. He wrote them on Easter Sunday in the living room of his home. He wrote them in a fast-food restaurant parking lot.

"And sometimes he merely signed them, with clinic employees later filling in the blanks, including the patient's name and the narcotic drug being prescribed." (http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20111220/NEWS01/120125018)

Court records show clinic clients paid Albert $200, $185 for returning customers. Some spent five minutes with Albert while others didn't see him at all.
Care Pain Management clinic responded by changing its name to Care More Medical Management. It's still in business.

"Before Albert's (guilty) plea, Tammy Cantrell, one of the clinic's owners, denied that Cantrell violated the law while working there or that she knew what he was doing.

"'He done his meanness after hours,' Cantrell said in an interview. 'What he was doing illegal was after hours, not on our time.'"

Nevertheless, Care More was paying Albert $8,500 a week. Sometimes Cantrell, who has no medical training or college degree, filled out prescriptions presigned by Albert. "Moreover, Care More now employs a physician, Rano Bofill, who has been disciplined in West Virginia for a drug-prescribing-related violation, who is practicing under sanctions imposed by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and who himself is a prolific prescriber of controlled substances...."


"In September 2009, according to the plea agreement and the affidavit, DEA agent (Lynne) Thompson arranged an interview with Cantrell, who acknowledged that she, (Shelby) Lackey and their husbands owned the clinic — which had moved twice during the year and was now located up a hollow on Teays Branch Road, primarily an industrial area. Cantrell confirmed Albert's salary, said he saw patients at the office after hours and on weekends, and that he had a side practice called Appalachian Pain, according to the affidavit....

"Asked how much money the clinic took in, Cantrell said, 'That's none of your business,' before hanging up the phone. In a later conversation, she contended that Care More did not make 'much' of a profit. 'We was paying a man a lot of money and got screwed,' Cantrell said. 'He was a crook. We thought we had a good physician. Come to find out we had, I guess you would call, a con artist.'

"Asked about the assertion in court records that she filled out prescriptions that Albert pre-signed, Cantrell said, 'I don't remember that. If we wrote any prescriptions, they were signed by him. It is not illegal to write a prescription for a doctor if they review and sign it.'"

 The website cited above, by the way, contains a great photo of Cantrell's co-owner husband with arm extended in an effort to avoid a news photographer. Care More was raided by authorities earlier this year. Seventeen people were arrested and office files and computers were seized. How in the world is the clinic and company still in business?