Spokane Valley doctor accused of over-prescribing pain medications to 18 patients
A Spokane Valley doctor is accused of prescribing opioids to at least 18 patients “in a remarkably dangerous fashion,” state regulators say.
Dr. Merle Janes prescribed the highly addictive medications to patients without doing any of the standard physicals and histories, without determining if patients had a history of substance abuse, and even when he was aware that a patient had a history of suicide attempts, according to the Medical Quality Assurance Commission.
A statement of charges said in one case Janes prescribed up to 1,920 milligrams of oxycodone per day to a 41-year-old patient who was being treated for fibromyalgia, sciatica and “deep joint and back pain.” That equates to a 2,880 Morphine Equivalent Dose (MED), a standard reference. Washington’s guidelines for opioid dosing says patients taking more than 120 MED per day should be counseled because of the risk of potential overdose, and notes that “overdose risk approximately doubles at doses between 20 and 49 mg/day MED, and increases nine-fold at doses of 100 mg/day MED or more.”
Another of Janes’ patients overdosed on opioids in a possible suicide attempt and received psychiatric treatment, but the doctor continued to prescribe painkillers to her, the statement of charges said.
Janes couldn’t be reached for comment. The Spokane Valley clinic where he works, Valley Rehab and Rebirth Med Spa, at 1414 N. Vercler Road, is open Monday-Wednesday and a telephone message was not returned.
A voicemail at that practice says he no longer provides pain-management services.
Another clinic he works at once a month near Tacoma said he was unavailable.
A message left for Janes’ attorney, Patrick Stiley, was not returned Friday.
Janes has until Wednesday to file a response to the allegations.
Eight years ago Janes was part of a group that filed a class action lawsuit against the state of Washington challenging its dosing recommendations and saying they were driven by “Opiophobia.” The lawsuit was dismissed in 2009.
Last December, Janes was profiled in the Journal of Business for his work in prolotherapy, an alternative treatment for pain that involves injecting a sugar-water solution into tendons and ligaments. Valley Rehab’s website says the practice also provides “Vampire” facelifts, which involve drawing blood from a patient’s arm, extracting platelets, then reinjecting the “platelet-rich plasma” under the patient’s skin.
The state Medical Quality Assurance Commission noted in its statement of charges that in addition to his opioid prescriptions, Janes “regularly engaged in non-standard treatments that lack evidence of efficacy and may be outside his trained scope of practice.”
The statement said those treatments include prescribing thyroid medication for weight loss; offering intravenous vitamin C infusions to treat an infection; and diagnosing one patient with “slipped clutch syndrome,” which the statement notes is “not a diagnosis accepted in medicine.”