FAKE MRI REPORTS GET DRUGS FOR MANY

Patients Buy Documents To Support Pain Stories

SOUTH SHORE -- Donna Sue Hurt Webb was sitting in the waiting room of a
small medical clinic early last year, she said, when a fellow patient told
her how to get an MRI report:

Go outside to the parking lot, Webb said she was told. Give a large man in
a parked car 50 bucks.

Webb, 59, said she did as she was told. And in return she got a bogus MRI
report substantiating that she had the kind of injury a doctor should treat
with painkillers.

Like any thriving business, the booming illegal trade in prescription drugs
in Eastern Kentucky has spawned a satellite industry: trafficking in bogus
MRIs and other fake medical records. Investigators say the emergence of
such counterfeit documents shows the problem is becoming both more
organized and more sophisticated.

MRI is an acronym for magnetic resonance imaging, a kind of X-ray that
shows damage to soft tissues. Doctors often use written reports of MRIs,
which generally cost about $2,700 at hospitals and clinics, to diagnose and
treat back injuries or other infirmities, frequently with pain-killing
narcotics.

It's difficult to judge just how mature the trade in bogus MRIs has become,
investigators say. But there are troubling signs:

. Webb, of Johnson County, and Michael S. Slone, 39, of Bevinsville in
Floyd County, have been indicted in Greenup County on charges of obtaining
prescriptions by fraud, a Class D felony. Both were using bogus MRIs,
according to the indictments.

. Greenup County Sheriff Keith Cooper said officials at Tri-State Health
Clinic in South Shore have referred 52 reports of fake MRIs to him.

. A Paintsville hospital official said she had received about 20 reports
that people were manufacturing MRI reports on the hospital's letterhead,
the first of which came from a Martin County librarian.

. A local prosecutor thinks the counterfeit reports might be the work of a
syndicate.

Six Months Of Painkillers

In an interview, Webb said her bogus MRI report, which came complete with
her name, age and Social Security number, was convincing enough that over a
six-month period, physicians working at the Tri-State clinic prescribed a
variety of pain pills for her, from Lorcet to Valium.

"I don't know who the guy was, but right out in the parking lot, they were
selling MRIs," she said. "There are fake MRIs all over South Shore, I know
that."

In July, however, clinic employees questioned the completeness of Webb's
MRI report and investigators from the FIVCO Area Development District
(FADE) drug task force arrested her.

In their report, FADE detectives Kenny Diamond and James Sparks said Webb
told them "a friend introduced her to an unknown (person) in Paintsville
who produces the bogus reports. ... She advised there are several patients
at this clinic that had obtained falsified reports from the same individual
in Paintsville."

In an interview, however, Webb said she does not think the reports were
produced in Paintsville. "In fact, I know they aren't," she said, but
declined to elaborate.

A week after Webb was arrested on July 5, the task force arrested Slone on
the same charge. A doctor noticed that the MRI reports submitted by both
Slone and his mother were identical, except for the names and birthdays,
court records said.

Slone confessed his report was based on his mother's MRI report, which also
was false, court records said.

Both Slone and Webb were indicted on Sept. 19. Webb is scheduled for trial
Feb. 27, but no trial date has been set for Slone, who has not been served
with an arrest warrant and is considered a fugitive, court officials said.

Webb appeared angry at clinic workers who, she said, accepted her $120
office fee before turning her over to police.

Cooper, the sheriff, said Tri-State clinic, which opened in 2001 and
charges up to $250 for first-time office visits, is under investigation.

But both he and Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Duvall said clinic operators
have cooperated with investigators and frequently report suspicious patients.

"We turn them in," said Tri-State office manager Alice Jewett. "We're a
legal business; that's why we're still open."

Jewett is a former employee at a South Shore clinic owned by Dr. David
Procter, who was one of several doctors with ties to South Shore indicted
in recent years on charges of illegally prescribing controlled drugs.

Jewett's mother, Denise Huffman, is listed as the Tri-State clinic's
operator. A former patient of Procter's, Huffman is scheduled to testify in
Procter's trial on April 23, court records show.

Signs Of Organization

Duvall, the prosecutor, said he has not sought additional indictments on
fake MRI charges because the Tri-State clinic has had several temporary
physicians, and he would have trouble contacting them to testify in court.

To Duvall and others, however, the faked reports are evidence that Eastern
Kentucky's prescription-drug problems are more organized than the recent
arrests of loosely linked doctors suggests.

"I call it a syndicate," Duvall said. "I believe somebody is paying people
to go into doctors' offices armed with these false medical records."

Many doctors say they generally trust patients who claim to be suffering
from pain, but the fake medical records serve the patients' needs and help
protect the physician, Duvall said.

"The doctor feels better about writing a prescription because he's got
something in his file that says this patient is in pain," he said.

Some investigators agree.

"I can't blame it on a specific doctor or a specific clinic," said Diamond,
of the FADE effort, "but these fake MRIs provide cover for everybody -- the
clinic and doctors, particularly -- except the patients who get caught."

No one has yet been charged with selling counterfeit MRI reports, said
Diamond, who is no longer assigned to the task force.

But he said investigators know, "without a doubt, that some people ... are
dealing them," Diamond said.

Diamond's former partner, James Sparks, said many bogus reports are coming
from across the Ohio River in Portsmouth.

A Paintsville Connection

Investigation reports accompanying indictments in Green-up Circuit Court
said Slone's allegedly fake MRI report appeared written on letterhead paper
from Paul B. Hall Regional Medical Center in Paintsville.

Webb's MRI report appeared to have been prepared by Pikeville Radiology,
although the firm does not even possess MRI equipment, the investigation
report says.

Deborah Trimble, administrator of the Paintsville hospital, said she
received inquiries from police in southern Ohio and the Tri-State clinic
concerning at least 20 MRI reports, most of which were fraudulent.

"They were signed by radiologists who have never worked here," Trimble said.

Trimble said the first reports of her hospital's name being used on the
bogus reports came from Martin County librarian Janet Copley in April.

"She became suspicious and found out what they were doing," Trimble said.
"She said they were using their computers and printers to turn out these
fake MRIs."

Copley said two men left behind a botched copy in a wastebasket.

Pikeville Radiology employee Sherry Carte said she was not aware of any
other bogus MRI reports involving the company.

Webb's report contained a fake patient identification number and the name
of a doctor who never worked at the Pike-ville firm, an investigation
report said.

Duvall said he thinks doctors' "sensitivity to this problem needs to become
much greater."

Doctors can always demand to see the actual MRI film instead of written
reports, said Trimble, the Paintsville hospital administrator. "But nobody
ever asked for those," she said.

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