Graves Doctor’s Patients Struggle With Prescription Needs, Medical Care
By Steve Vantreese, The Paducah Sun, Ky.
Apr. 6–MAYFIELD, Ky. — Many former patients of a Mayfield physician whose medical license is suspended apparently are now in the care of other doctors.
Prescriptions written by Dr. Dinesh H. Shah are no good, forcing his patients with ongoing prescription needs to find other doctors.
Shah’s practice was frozen when the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure put an emergency suspension on his license in February over contentions in reviews that the physician performed some procedures unnecessarily, provided inappropriate or substandard care, exhibited poor medical judgment and departed from prevailing medical practices.
Shah appealed the emergency suspension and called for a hearing, which subsequently saw the emergency order upheld, pending a final ruling after a regular hearing on the allegations is held July 8-10.
Meanwhile, patients of Shah have been finding their way out of a medical purgatory.
“They won’t refill Dr. Shah’s prescriptions, and other doctors have been turning Dr. Shah’s patients away,” said Brenda Turner of Hickory, previously a patient of Shah.
Turner said she struggled to find another doctor, adding that several said they wouldn’t accept new patients after it became known she had been treated by Shah. She’s now under the care of Dr. Bruce Smith in Clinton.
“He treated me with respect and took me on as a patient,” she said.
Daniel Jones, a pharmacist at Gibson’s Discount Pharmacy in Mayfield, said the state pharmacy board allowed a three-week grace period during which Shah’s patients could have maintenance prescriptions filled as soon as the physician’s license was suspended.
“The three weeks has elapsed now, so we are no longer filling any of those prescriptions,” Jones said. “But most of Dr. Shah’s patients have found new doctors during that time, so they’re getting prescriptions from them.”
Jones said there likely remain former Shah patients who didn’t seek or couldn’t find new doctors, people who now can’t have ongoing prescriptions filled.
Pain medications are another matter. Shah’s prescriptions for controlled substances became invalid as soon as his license was suspended. Jones said regulations make prescriptions for controlled substances void immediately when a doctor’s license is revoked or when a physician dies.
“Nobody was cut off from necessary maintenance medications, but there wasn’t any grace period allowed on controlled substances,” said Jamie Wilson, a pharmacist for Stone’s Pharmacy in Mayfield. “Patients who were receiving controlled substance drugs from the first day of his suspension, they probably would have had some trouble.”
Wilson acknowledged that some may have had trouble finding new general medical care.
“It’s hard here in Mayfield because we’re kind of short on doctors in general,” Wilson said.
A current recording of Shah on his office number offers information on how former patients can have their records transferred to new doctors. But the recording does offer hope that Shah will resume his practice in July after the scheduled licensure board hearing.
Shah could not be reached for comment.
Steve Vantreese can be reached at 575-8684.
*
—–
To see more of The Paducah Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.paducahsun.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Paducah Sun, Ky.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.