AGENTS RAID PAIN DOCTOR'S OFFICE

"The Hidden Agenda Is Pain Management," Linda Cheek Said of the Raid
on Her Medical Practice in Dublin.

A New River Valley pain doctor says her office was raided Tuesday
afternoon by more than a dozen law enforcement agents who "documented
the contents of every box and file drawer" and who said their search
warrant was Medicaid-related.

Although no federal agency would confirm an investigation of Linda
Cheek's practice at New River Medical Associates in Dublin, Capt.
George Austin with the Virginia State Police said his agency assisted
in the execution of a search warrant Tuesday in Pulaski County.

Austin referred questions to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services in Roanoke, which declined to comment.

Heidi Coy, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Roanoke,
would neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

"Charges have not been filed, but the justification for the search
warrant was billing," Cheek, 57, wrote in an e-mail to The Roanoke
Times. "The hidden agenda is pain management."

According to Cheek, she is a primary care physician who has been in
practice for 10 years.

She took up alternative medicine in 2000, first practicing
acupuncture, which led to an interest in pain management.

Cheek said she has treated pain for the past six years and for three
of those years has used multidisciplinary techniques such as
psychiatric counseling and "cleansing," a procedure that removes
toxins from the body.

When she asked insurance companies about how to bill some of those
treatments, Cheek said, she was told to simply do it the best way she
could, and see what happened. She said she has only billed insurance
or state and federal health care programs for evaluation and
management of the related health problem, physical therapy, electrical
therapy and hypnosis.

Cheek said it is her opinion that the whole coding system is
unaccommodating to alternative medicine specialists.

"I have to be true to the science more than I have to be true to the
government," she said.

Cheek said she does prescribe Schedule II painkillers such as
OxyContin and methadone, and her two nurse practitioners cannot
prescribe pain medication so she signs their prescriptions for them.
She added that it probably looks on record as though she prescribes
three times what a normal doctor would prescribe.

Although Cheek suggests that the investigation is about her pain
practice, there is no evidence to suggest it played a role in the raid.

Dozens of doctors across the country have faced charges in connection
with their prescribing practices, including former Roanoke pain doctor
Cecil Knox. Once facing more than 300 charges, Knox was partially
acquitted in 2003 by a jury that was hung on the remaining charges.

Knox pleaded guilty to three felonies in October and was sentenced in
January to five years' probation. He also voluntarily gave up his
license to practice medicine.