Wyoming Board of Medicine Suspends Casper Doctor’s License For Excessive Painkiller Prescriptions
The Wyoming State Board of Medicine suspended the physician license of a Casper doctor who was arrested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for probable federal drug violations.
The board received information on Nov. 15 about Dr. Shakeel Kahn's prescription practices to three patients, including his wife, according to its order to suspend the license.
Two weeks later, it conducted an emergency executive session to review his practice, the Arizona Board of Medicine's suspension of his license in August, and alleged violations of the Wyoming Medical Practice Act.
"The Board is led to find that Kahn's continued possession of a Wyoming Physician License and practice of medicine in Wyoming poses an imminent and immediate threat to the public health, safety, and welfare of the people of the Wyoming and other states that imperatively requires a summary suspension of his Wyoming Physician License," the board wrote.
The next day, Nov. 30, Casper police and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested Kahn and his wife Lyn. They are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute oxycodone.
In its research, the Wyoming board found Kahn received his physician license in the state on Feb. 8, 2007, and his Arizona license on Jan. 3, 2008.
The medical board reviewed Kahn's history of a patient known as CEM in Arizona and how he deviated from the standard care with his prescriptions of high amounts of oxycodone, methadone and fentanyl. Kahn also prescribed high amounts of these drugs to CEM in Wyoming.
Besides placing patient CEM at unreasonable risk, the Board of Medicine wrote Kahn "may have conspired to acquire to a drug classified as a scheduled drug by deception for use by someone other than Patient CEM."
The second patient, LV, considered themselves to be "'in a relationship'" starting Oct. 29, 2014. LV is Lyn Voss, now Lyn Kahn.
The board found Shakeel Kahn prescribed controlled substances hydrocodone, phentermine, hydromorphone, Tramadol and testosterone cypionate injection. For more information on these and other drugs, visit drugs.com.
The Board of Medicine saw two possible problems with this: the doctor was engaging in "unprofessional or dishonorable conduct" for being in a relationship with a patient and prescribing controlled substances for her, or if she wasn't using the drugs herself, she may have been trying obtain them by fraud.
It also looked at his large prescriptions of oxycodone for a patient known as DC starting Feb. 29, 2016. He increased the dose, and then sharply decreased it three months later. Kahn made similar prescription increases and decreases from Aug. 3 to Oct. 1.
The Board of Medicine stated Kahn was either showing careless disregard for the patient or conspiring to acquire a narcotic by fraud.
The Board suspended his license until it files a formal complaint against Kahn and can conduct a hearing.