Doctors Behaving Badly: Eye doctor prescribed drugs to patients, sight unseen
Luckily for Dr. Dan Stephen Hollis, an Alabama ophthalmologist, medical boards rarely see selling drugs over the Internet in the same way that police officers see selling drugs in the street.
Hollis was indicted by federal prosecutors in Georgia in 2006 for prescribing drugs to patients through an internet pharmacy.
Hollis never saw the patients, never examined them, never checked to make sure they were, indeed, suffering from whatever they claimed was ailing them. He was paid to write prescriptions, and he became quite prolific.
In just one year, Hollis wrote 43,930 prescriptions for drugs that included more than 26,000 controlled Schedule III and Schedule IV substances, which include often-abused Valium, Rohypnol and Ambien.
If math isn't your strong suit, that works out to about 170 prescriptions for every work day. And, as the Alabama State Board of Medical Examiners noted, "the patients' order form was Dr. Hollis' only contact with his patients.'
This is not the standard practice of medicine.
Hollis was able to cut a plea deal in 2008 that allowed him to stay out of jail but still forced him to spend one year in home confinement.
The Alabama State Board of Medical Examiners waited four years after the indictment to take any action against Hollis, and when the board did act, it did not break Hollis' stride. The board gave Hollis a public reprimand and fined him $20,000.
Let me back up. They call the reprimand "public,' but it might as well be stored inside a vault underneath a bearskin rug. If you check the board's Web site, you would have few clues that Hollis had done anything wrong or ever been accused of such. Here is what Hollis' public profile says:
Personal Information
Licensee Name: Hollis, Dan Stephen
Location: Auburn, Alabama
Year of Birth: 1947
License Information
Status: ACTIVE
License Number: MD.8278
License Issued Date: 5/17/1978
Expire Date: 12/31/2010
Public File: YES
Primary Specialty: Ophthalmology
Medical School Name: Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Medical School Location: Winston, Salem
Medical School Dates: 9/69-5/73
What part of that list would give anyone reason to investigate further? If you are a reporter, your eyes might be drawn to "Public File.' And, yes, that's the key.
He has a file that is public, and if you figure out how to download said file from the Web site you will be rewarded with another Easter egg. This guy has been disciplined once before! He was accused of being too eager to operate on a glaucoma patient and of blinding a patient in one eye.
The medical board told him he should have prescribed drugs instead.
Final question: Why hasn't the Georgia Composite Medical Board taken any action against Hollis' license? If you hunt around, you'll find that not only was Hollis in trouble twice over the past 10 years, his Lasik surgery center was shut down at least twice for unsafe medical practices and for performing unlicensed plastic surgery procedures.
Related Posts:
Q&A with Dr. Stephen Hollis, Part 1: Ban online Botox, but make other drugs more accessible
Q&A with Dr. Stephen Hollis, Part 2: Government tries to "terrorize" doctors into submission
Q&A with Dr. Stephen Hollis, Part 3: Can't protect patients from their own stupidity