Doc to settle drug law case for $65K
A Kingfisher doctor has agreed to pay $65,000 to settle allegations he violated a federal law by incorrectly dating patients’ prescriptions, Oklahoma City federal prosecutors reported Thursday.
James Brett Krablin said he “post-dated” prescriptions to prevent patients from refilling medications early.
“With the current opioid crisis, we are very, very strict in our refill policies.
“We do not allow early refills,” Krablin told The Oklahoman on Thursday.
“We post-dated the scripts for the actual day they were due. We did this in absolute good faith with the attempt to keep medicines out of patients’ hands early.”
Krablin, 45, operates Krablin Medical Clinic, a private practice in Kingfisher. Prosecutors alleged Krablin violated the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and its regulations by dating prescriptions for controlled substances on dates other than when he signed them.
The alleged offenses occurred between August 2014 and September 2016, prosecutors reported.
“When you sign that prescription, it has to be dated the day that you see the patient. We were post-dating it by two, three, four days so it couldn’t be filled early,” Krablin said.
“We were doing what we thought was the right thing in a strong attempt to prevent dispensation early or over dispensation of medications.”
Krablin said the simple solution to this issue was to correctly date the prescriptions for when patients were seen and then include a separate “fill date” on it.
“We were failing to do that,” he said. “When this came to our attention it completely shocked us.”
In reaching the settlement, Krablin didn’t admit liability and the government didn’t make any concessions regarding the legitimacy of the claims.
The agreement allows the parties to avoid the expense, inconvenience and uncertainty involved in litigation.
“There was nothing criminal about this case,” Krablin said.
“There were no allegations of over prescribing, no allegations of any problems with record-keeping or amounts written.”
He said there was never any disciplinary or restrictive actions done against his practice or licenses to prescribe medications.