A Vestavia Hills doctor accused of running a "pill mill" at his Jasper neurology and pain clinic was indicted today on illegal drug distribution charges for dispensing narcotic painkillers for other than legitimate medical purposes, authorities said.
Muhammad Wasim Ali, 50, is charged with 10 counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances "outside the scope of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose" to three people working undercover with law enforcement. The indictment was announced by U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge Clay A. Morris and IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Veronica Hyman-Pillott.
Ali is the owner of Walker Rural Health Care/Jasper Neurological Care Clinic. DEA agents raided the clinic on March 27.
Records from the Alabama State Board of Medical Examiners show Ali had a complaint filed against him in 2011 accusing him of improperly and/or excessively prescribing controlled substances, including OxyContin, Lortab and Norco. According to those records, his license was suspended and he was fined $10,000 in November of 2012. That suspension was lifted in July 2013 after he attended an "intensive course in medical record keeping."
At a preliminary hearing for Ali earlier this month, testimony showed he prescribed to patients an average of 52 schedule II narcotics - hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone or morphine - a day, putting him in the top 1 percent of Alabama physicians dispensing those controlled medications.
The 10 distribution counts charge 10 instances that Ali illegally dispensed oxycodone, an opioid painkiller, to three undercover agents between August 2014 and November 2014, according to the U.S. Attorney's press release. The indictment says Ali dispensed 1,100 oxycodone pills to the three people within those three months.
The DEA began investigating Ali last summer. A female undercover agent was sent into Ali's office to get prescriptions for narcotics, and all of the visits were secretly recorded, according to preliminary hearing testimony. There are several "red flags" that a doctor may be running a "pill mill," DEA says. Those include large crowds of patients inside and outside the office; a large number of patients who are from outside the county or state; a large number of patients paying in cash; and lack of a physical exam by the doctor.
"Narcotic painkillers have an important and legitimate use in medical treatment, but Alabama leads the nation in the number of prescriptions per capita for opioid painkillers," Vance said in a prepared statement. "Opiates are extremely addictive, and the use and abuse of opioid painkillers often lead to the abuse of and addiction to heroin, which is killing people in record numbers. Physicians who provide these dangerous narcotics without justifiable medical reasons must be stopped."
"The use and abuse of prescription opioid pain relievers for non-medical reasons is at epidemic levels across the United States, and Alabama is no exception," Morris said, also in a prepared statement. "The DEA enjoys outstanding relationships with the vast majority of DEA registrants, including physicians; however, physicians who have abandoned their duties and the Hippocratic Oath cannot be tolerated."
"Those whose sole purpose is to profit from the addictions of others will be stopped," he said. "The abuse of opioid-based drugs is deadly. DEA remains committed to removing all drug sources of supply from our communities."