By Dave Stafford, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
ANDERSON — Dr. Phillip D. Foley is accused of running a pill mill from his Middletown office and recklessly prescribing controlled pain medications that the state says led to or played a role in at least 10 fatal overdoses.
The Indiana Attorney General’s office wants the Medical Licensing Board to suspend Foley’s license for 90 days. The interim step could be followed by a hearing to revoke his license.
The complaint against Foley spells out his prescriptions of narcotics, depressants and muscle relaxants for 10 patients who have died since 1999. It details the drugs and dates they were provided to those patients, asserting that in some cases refills were provided within five days.
“Dr. Foley has prescribed the largest volume of controlled substances in the state of Indiana,” said Molly Butters, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office consumer protection division. She said the charge is based on a National Drug Information Center analysis of prescriptions he wrote from 2005 to May 2008.
The complaint alleges that during that period:
- Foley wrote more than 96,000 prescriptions, a rate of about 545 per week.
- He treated 141 patients and wrote 424 prescriptions on one day in April 2007. “If (Foley) worked a nonstop, 10-hour workday, (he) would have spent approximately four minutes per patient and ... written 1.4 prescriptions every minute.”
- 98.8 percent of Foley’s prescriptions were classified as narcotics, depressants, muscle relaxants or stimulants. Powerful, addictive painkillers hydrocodone, oxycodone and morphine accounted for 96.2 percent of the narcotics prescriptions.
- Some prescriptions were written without physical exams.
Contacted at his office Monday, Foley denied conclusions drawn from the analysis. He said some of the patients died of causes other than overdose, and at least one patient the state said had died was still alive.
“All I can say is (authorities have) been harassing me the last 40 years, 30 years. They’ve come into my office on numerous occasions and didn’t find anything and now they’ve come in and picked up some people’s charts who had died,” Foley said. “This can’t be explained in five minutes or 10 minutes or an hour. It’s a long story.”
He said 12 employees in his office treat more than 2,000 patients, including many with chronic, painful or terminal conditions.
“I’ve done the best I could to help people who are in pain,” he said. “I am a Christian physician who believes in helping the pain and suffering of people.
“I haven’t done anything bad. ... I have nothing to feel guilty about.”
Nevertheless, Foley, 72, was resigned to a likely board decision against him.
“They’ll probably suspend my license,” he said. “They’ve already told local pharmacies not to fill my prescriptions ... Doesn’t that give you a pretty good idea they’ve probably made up their mind?”
A local pharmacist who declined to be identified confirmed that some pharmacies in the area have been directed to stop filling prescriptions written by Foley.
Butters said the 90-day license suspension hearing on Thursday will be to determine whether Foley poses an immediate threat to public health. “This will allow the state to complete an investigation at which time a formal complaint will be forwarded to the board.
“I anticipate that would be a request for a permanent revocation,” she said.
Butters said the case against Foley represents a larger problem.
“In general, we see this as an alarming trend, a growing, alarming trend in Indiana and around the country,” she said. “The attorney general is dedicated to pursuing these cases and protecting Hoosiers.”
Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com
Medical Licensing Board meeting
The Medical Licensing Board of Indiana will consider suspending the license of Dr. Phillip D. Foley for 90 days. The public hearing is at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Indiana Government Center, 402 W. Washington St., Room W-064, Indianapolis.
