In a 9-3 vote, the Arkansas State Medical Board on Friday agreed to drop its findings that a Sherwood doctor violated state law and board regulations by prescribing excessive amounts of pain medication and failing to keep the proper records.
In exchange for the board's action, Mahmood Ahmad agreed to reimburse the board $20,000 for the cost of its investigations of him and submit to an audit of his patient records at the United Pain Care Clinic in Sherwood.
The findings that were dropped came after a hearing in June 2013 and cited prescriptions to seven patients. According to board records, one 59-year-old patient's wife complained that her husband had been overmedicated and blamed the medicine for his May 3, 2012, suicide.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen in October rejected Ahmad's appeal of the board's sanctions, and Ahmad appealed the ruling to the Arkansas Court of Appeals.
On Friday, Ahmad had been scheduled for a hearing before the board on similar allegations related to another seven patients.
Kevin O'Dwyer, the board's attorney, told the board that the additional claims related to prescriptions that were written before the 2013 hearing and that "trickled in" around the time of the hearing.
Since then, the board hasn't received any additional complaints about Ahmad, O'Dwyer said.
Ahmad said most of the complaints had come from pharmacists who were unhappy that his clinic had its own pharmacy. He said he has since closed the on-site pharmacy and has attended a board-recommended Vanderbilt University course on prescribing pain medicine.
His attorney, Drake Mann of Little Rock, said Ahmad changed his prescribing practices after he learned of the allegations.
"There was an abrupt and consistent reduction in the quantity of opioids that he prescribed," Mann said. "These events absolutely got his attention."
Board Vice Chairman Sylvia Simon, a Monticello family practice doctor, opposed rescinding the board's findings, noting that one of Ahmad's patients had died of an illness that appeared to be related to taking excessive amounts of pain medication.
"I don't want to see other deaths," Simon said.
Board member Steve Cathey, a North Little Rock neurosurgeon, said Ahmad appeared to have done what the board wanted.
"Other than this blip, he's taken good care of my patients," Cathey said.
Cathey voted in favor of the agreement along with Harold Betton of Little Rock, Omar Atiq of Pine Bluff, Jim Citty of Searcy, William Dudding of Fort Smith, John Hearnsberger of Nashville, Veryl Hodges of Jonesboro, Buddy Lovell of Marked Tree and Scott Pace of Little Rock.
Simon, John Scribner of Salem and Bob Cogburn of Mountain Home voted against accepting the agreement with Ahmad. John Weiss of Fayetteville was absent, and Chairman Joseph Beck of Little Rock typically only votes to break a tie.
Also Friday, the board found that anesthesiologist Darin Swonger violated the Medical Practices Act and board regulations when he stole morphine for his own use from Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home.
Swonger told the board he took the medicine for back pain. After the hospital discovered the theft in July, Swonger said he entered a treatment program with the Arkansas Medical Foundation.
The board revoked Swonger's medical license for five years, but stayed the revocation on the condition that he follow the board's orders.
Those include not practicing medicine until Swonger submits to an evaluation for substance abuse and reports back to the board. The board also barred Swonger from prescribing narcotics and other controlled substances and ordered him to reimburse the board $1,284 for investigation expenses.
Metro on 02/07/2015