Winnipeg MD in sex-for-drugs case in trouble again over billing
A Winnipeg doctor who was suspended for trading prescription drugs for sex is in trouble again, this time for billing Manitoba Health for patients he did not visit.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba says Dr. Randy Allan's billing number was used to collect fees from Manitoba Health for patients he did not see himself.
Instead, a nurse practitioner was making those visits and splitting the fees with Allan and Four Rivers Medical Clinic, where they both worked.
"He was putting in claims for having seen a patient, which they assumed, when in fact he had not seen the patient," Dr. Bill Pope, the college's registrar and CEO, said Wednesday.
"There was no personal patient contact, physician-patient contact, in those situations."
The college's investigation committee censured Allan on April 25. He has been ordered to pay Manitoba Health $124,726 that was billed between January 2009 and the fall of that year.
Two other physicians at the Four Rivers clinic had similar arrangements with the nurse practitioner and have been disciplined.
A fourth doctor from the same clinic, Dr. Anton Kloppers, faces a possible suspension from the college, CBC News reported last month.
The owner of the clinic, Dr. Daren Jorgensen, declined to comment on the case.
Pope said money is not the only concern in this case, as patients' safety could have been placed at risk.
"He was taking responsibility for those patients and he did not review the chart, he did not sign off that it was appropriate treatment and the like," he said.
"So it was a suggestion that he was treating patients when in fact, this was not adequately recorded. As you can appreciate, it's tremendously important that notes reflect the actual case."
Suspended in 2012
Allan was suspended in 2012 for giving prescriptions for oxycontin to two female patients he had met in massage parlours.
Allan admitted that he had "personal and sexual relationships" with both women while he was providing medical care to them, according to a report from the college, which suspended his medical licence for what it called an abuse of trust.
The college also found that Allan's medical records did not mention that the women were both addicted to oxycontin at the time, and that one of them was buying the drug on the street.
Allan has not practised medicine in Manitoba since he received the 18-month suspension.
He left the clinic in the summer of 2009, but a few months later he learned "the clinic continued to use his billing number for visits made by the nurse practitioner even though Dr. Allan was no longer at the clinic and no longer supervising the patient care provided by the nurse practitioner," according to the college's report on Allan's censure.
"Other than taking steps with Manitoba Health to prevent this from continuing, Dr. Allan took no action."
Manitoba Health has forwarded the latest case to the Winnipeg Police Service. Its commercial crime unit is investigating.