State tries to discipline, but doctor rejects it

State investigators as long ago as 2009 were concerned about Dr. Willem Ouw, saying in reports that the Broward County doctor had a pattern of giving out painkillers in large amounts.

In 2013, the Department of Health charged him in two cases. But they didn’t stop him from writing prescriptions.

The cases involving Ouw, 84, show how much power doctors have to avoid punishment and how state health regulators fail to follow through on discipline cases. State health officials prefer to resolve most doctor discipline cases through settlement agreements, which require approval from state medical boards — and the doctors themselves.

The state Board of Medicine, which regulates doctors, tried in June of 2014 to restrict Ouw from prescribing controlled substances, put him under supervision for a year and fine him $60,000.

But Ouw rejected the board’s punishment and health department officials made no further efforts to try and discipline him.

Nor did the state suspend Ouw’s license while the prosecution continued. Though the state has such power, it rarely uses it, the Sun Sentinel found.

With his license intact, federal officials said Ouw ran a pill mill, illegally giving out prescriptions for more than 480,000 oxycodone, amphetamine and morphine pills.

In June, federal authorities arrested Ouw and barred him from prescribing pills, doing what Florida health regulators tried to do three years earlier.

Ouw, who declined to comment through his federal defense attorney, is scheduled to go on trial in January.

The health department’s cases against him remain unresolved.

State Rep. Katie Edwards-Walpole, D-Plantation, said doctors accused of overprescribing should be prosecuted like drug dealers instead of waiting on state health regulators to act.

“I’m exasperated,” she said. “Why should they be provided with added layers of protections?”