Feds Ban Drug Prescriptions by LA Doctor

LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) -- U.S. officials say a Rowland Heights doctor who was forbidden to prescribe drugs after her office was tied to two overdose cases will not be held liable
for the patient deaths.
Hsiu-Ying Lisa Tseng denied any wrongdoing Wednesday after state
and federal authorities raided her office in Rowland Heights, a
suburb east of Los Angeles.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration also suspended her
certificate to prescribe controlled substance on grounds that she
was an imminent danger to public health and safety.
An affidavit supporting the office search said investigators had
tied two overdose deaths to Tseng's office. She was the prescribing
physician in six other cases that ended in suicide or overdose
deaths, the Los Angeles Times said, citing autopsy reports and
interviews.
"I really believe I did nothing wrong," Tseng told the
newspaper. "I was really strict with my patients, and I followed
the guidelines. If my patient decides to take a month's supply (of
drugs) in a day, then there's nothing I can do about that."
An administrative hearing will be held to determine whether
Tseng's certificate should be permanently revoked. She was not
charged with any crime and retained her license to practice
medicine.
Investigators said they found a number of individuals who
received drugs from Tseng and abused or sold them. In one case
cited in the affidavit, a 20-year-old man overdosed after taking
drugs provided by a dealer who allegedly got them from Tseng.
Undercover investigators posed as patients seeking prescriptions
for controlled substances during six visits to Tseng's office
between April 2008 and July 2010, DEA special agent Timothy Landrum
said.
He contended that on five occasions Tseng, a general osteopath,
issued prescriptions for Vicodin, Suboxone and Xanax after
conducting a cursory medical examination or none at all, without
taking a medical history and for no legitimate medical purpose.
Tseng wrote more than 27,000 prescriptions for controlled
substances over three years ending in February -- an average of 25 a
day, according to a state prescription database.
The affidavit said Tseng refused several requests for drugs made
by undercover agents. Once, she declined to prescribe Oxycodone for
an agent pretending to have bad menstrual cramps and told another
agent seeking drugs that she "does not want a patient that takes
painkillers for fun or to get high," the document states.