Board Seeks to Suspend Doctor’s License

By Jeannine Koranda, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Dec. 28–The Kansas Board of Healing Arts filed an emergency order Thursday asking a judge to suspend Haysville physician Stephen Schneider’s medical license, arguing that his “continuation in practice constitutes an imminent danger to the public health and safety.”

The case will go before an administrative law judge for a hearing, although there is no timeline for when that will happen, said Kelli Stevens, litigation counsel for the board.

If the motion is approved, Schneider’s medical license would be suspended until the board’s full case against him was resolved, Stevens said.

The petition, filed with the Office of Administrative Hearings, was spurred in part by a 68-page federal indictment released last week. It said that 56 patients from Schneider’s Haysville clinic died from accidental overdoses and that he continued to unlawfully prescribe pain medication, said board executive director Larry Buening.

“The information available to the grand jury was not brought to light until the indictment was filed,” he said.

In the meantime, Schneider — who is being held in jail without bond — still has an active medical license, Stevens said.

Suspending his medical license would also mean his Haysville clinic could no longer operate, Buening said.

The board’s petition noted that even though Schneider is in jail, his clinic could continue to provide medical care because he still has an active license.

The board noted the “shockingly high number of patient deaths from accidental overdose” listed in the federal indictment. Some of those cases were included in the board’s request for disciplinary action filed against Schneider starting in May 2006 and updated in November.

Rebecca Doan, who runs Doan Center for Counseling in El Dorado with her husband, called the move “appropriate and probably past due.”

The couple opened the drug counseling center five years ago, and she said several of their clients knew the Schneider Clinic as a place they could go to get pain medications.

Schneider, 54, and his wife, Linda, 49, face 34 federal charges centered on writing painkiller prescriptions at the clinic.

Tracy Diel, director for the Office of Administrative Hearings, said he did not know when the judge might hear the board’s request. It depended on the schedules of everyone involved.

Reach Jeannine Koranda at 785-296-3006 or jkoranda@wichitaeagle.com.

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