ANDERSON — A Middletown physician whose license was suspended by the Indiana Medical Licensing Board faces further punishment from the state.
The board on Oct. 22 issued an emergency 90-day suspension of Dr. Phillip D. Foley’s license, after the Indiana attorney general’s office claimed Foley recklessly prescribed narcotics and controlled substances to known addicts, contributing to the deaths of nine patients.
“We will be seeking an extension of the summary or emergency suspension,” said Molly Butters, public information officer with the attorney general’s office. She said Wednesday there was no other information about the hearing.
Officials said previously that the suspension of Foley’s license was likely a precursor to further action that could include an effort to permanently revoke his license.
In October, the board ruled Foley presented a clear and immediate danger to public health after hearing evidence about those who had fatally overdosed under his care. He also has been called the most prolific prescriber of controlled substances in Indiana.
An analysis from the National Drug Information Center used against Foley claimed that from 2005 to May 2008, he:
u Wrote more than 96,000 prescriptions, a rate of about 545 per week.
u 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.”
Despite the licensing case against him, Foley has a core of supporters, scores of whom showed up for the licensing board’s hearing in October.
Among them was Kim Frazier, 52, of Chesterfield, who said on Wednesday that Foley had gotten a bad rap, and she and other former patients were suffering because of it.
“That doctor is so much more than just a doctor,” said Frazier, who was losing her voice and feared for her health because she’s been unable to find a new doctor or get prescriptions filled for non-narcotic medications.
“I need thyroid medicine. I need polymyalgia medicine. I need my diabetes medicine. I can’t find another doctor,” she said. When she tells doctors that she was a patient of Foley, “they say, ‘maybe in a couple of months I might take you.’”
But also watching the case are people who say they lost loved ones under Foley’s care who are not among the nine in evidence before the licensing board.
“I definitely think he’s way past his time for having them take his license,” said Rob Shrock of Warren. He said his mother, Geri Shrock Brown of Marion, was a patient of Foley’s and was prescribed Xanax, Soma and Lortab. She died in 2006, days after she was hospitalized for an overdose. She was 62.
“We found her on the floor,” Shrock said. “I’d been trying to get my mom away from him for years and she just wouldn’t do it because she wanted her medication.”
Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com
What’s next
The Indiana Medical Licensing Board will consider extending the 90-day suspension of Dr. Phillip Foley, Middletown.
* When: Thursday, Dec. 3, 2:30 p.m.
* Where: Indiana Government Center South, Room W064, 402 W. Washington St., Indianapolis.
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