EXPERT: CLINIC DIDN'T FOLLOW RULES

FLORENCE - Medical records from a defunct Myrtle Beach pain management
clinic show its doctors, including three on trial for illegally
distributing narcotics, failed to comply with state guidelines, said Art
Jordan, an expert in the field.

A pain management specialist and neurologist from Myrtle Beach, Jordan said
patient examinations at Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center were
too brief, and some doctors signed blank prescriptions and met with groups
of patients before issuing prescriptions, based on client files he reviewed.

"It's illegal to sign blank prescriptions," Jordan said.

Those actions were outside the normal course of legitimate medical
practice, said Jordan, who reviews physician files for the S.C. Board of
Medical Examiners disciplinary commission.

According to the board's adopted pain management guidelines, doctors should:

Document a patient's medical history, including examinations.

Have written treatment plans and objectives to help determine treatment
success.

Discuss risks and benefits of controlled substances with patients.

Periodically review the treatment courses.

Keep adequate records.

Former Myrtle Beach pain center doctors Michael Jackson, Ricardo Alerre and
Deborah Bordeaux face charges listed in a 93-count federal indictment,
including conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, including
OxyContin, and conspiracy to launder money.

During testimony Tuesday, Jordan said medical records for a patient Jackson
saw in June 1998 indicated the patient received a prescription for Lorcet
with no explanation for why the drug was prescribed.

The record also showed the patient's medication was switched to OxyContin
at the patient's request without documentation to explain the change.

Court ended Tuesday before Jackson's lawyer could cross-examine Jordan on
his testimony.

Jordan said records for another patient, who had been seen by Jackson and
Bordeaux at different times, didn't include follow-up information on how
much narcotics the Lancaster man had taken.

"The overall amount of history was deficient," Jordan said when questioned
by Mary Bayluss, a lawyer for Bordeaux. "It's important to have as much
history as you can."

He also said records indicated Alerre once prescribed narcotics to a
patient after the center received information the man was selling the drugs
he received.

Alerre's lawyer, William Nettles, said Alerre wrote a prescription because
the man complained of pain.

Also Tuesday, Drug Enforcement Administration investigator Adam Robeson
testified that Jackson and Bordeaux, during an interview in 2000, described
their concerns about the practices at Comprehensive Care and Pain
Management Center.

The two doctors, and others by then, had left to join another pain center
in Myrtle Beach.

David Vandergriff, who started the new clinic, "called us because they
wanted to tell us what they did wrong at the clinic," Robeson said.

Vandergriff was among three employees and five doctors at Comprehensive
Care who pleaded guilty to various charges including illegally writing
prescriptions for narcotics outside the normal course of medical practice
between 1997 and 2001.

Testimony so far in the trial has revealed that doctors at the clinic spent
nearly five years writing narcotic prescriptions and ordering a variety of
medical tests under the guise of a legitimate medical practice.

DEA agents said they seized the records or more than 3,000 of the clinic's
patients.

Witnesses have testified that about half the patients were in legitimate
pain, but the remainder were about 25 percent drug abusers and 25 percent
drug dealers.

Defense witnesses are expected to begin testimony when the trial resumes at
10 a.m. today.