Thirty-Five Dollars a Prescription

A licensed physician in a northern Virginia city was charged with 136 counts of distributing Schedule II to V controlled substances by prescription outside the usual course of medical practice. Seven former patients testified that they had described fake symptoms and received only superficial examinations, and undercover police officers recorded their own visits. Patient files showed a $35 fee per prescription visit. A government medical expert reviewed the files and testified that the prescribing had no legitimate medical purpose; for twenty of the patients in the indictment, no patient testified at all. The doctor contested the charges at a jury trial, disputing that his prescribing fell outside the usual course of professional practice.