Montana renews itself despite criminal civil inquiries against criminal inquiries from Cancer Kara

This article originally appeared on Prublica.

Prublica is an award -winning investigative news room. Register for the Big Story newsletter to get stories like this in your inbox.

At the end of 2020, the St. Peter's Hospital in Helena, Montana, his oncologist Dr. Thomas C. Weiner and undertook the extraordinary step to publicly accuse him of violating patients. The hospital said that the doctor overrued narcotics and given patients who had no cancer, among other things, chemotherapy.

Although the Montana Board of Medical Examiners renewed its license 2021 and 2023, the board has renewed its license again for another two years.

Questions about whether Weiner can continue to practice that have been medically intensified after an examination in December uncovered a trace of patient damage and at least 10 suspicious deaths associated with his practice. This investigation, which was based on thousands of court files and dozens of interviews, was described how Weiner built a highly volume business that invoiced public and private insurance as much as possible, while many of his patients received unnecessary, dangerous or inferior care.

Although it is unclear what the Medical Board of Directors considered before the renewal of the Weiner license, the study published by Prublica and Montana Free Press caused the attention of the law enforcement authorities. According to three sources involved in this matter, the criminal providers of the Ministry of Justice in Montana started an official investigation this month.

Weiner denied that he had abused his patients. He did not answer a request for a comment on the renewal of his license and the investigation by the Montana Ministry of Justice.

After releasing St. Peter Weiner, he sued the hospital for false termination and defamation. After a four -year legal dispute, the Montana Supreme Court was in a decision by the hospital this month. The court wrote that the Peer-Review process of the hospital for wine was “appropriate and reasonable due to the amount and severity of the inappropriate patient care of Weiner”.

After winning Weiner, the hospital inspected the files of more than 2,000 patients to whom he had prescribed controlled substances. Court files show that medical experts who were hired by St. Peter's, the case of Sharon Dibble, a 75-year-old patient who died shortly after Weiner died, had doubled her morphine recipe. This increase in morphine “led to the arrest of respiratory tract and the death of the patient,” concluded a medical expert commissioned by St. Peter.

The son of Dibble, Tom Stevison, described the decision of the Medical Board to renew Weiners license as “ridiculous”.

“There are simply too many evidence against him that indicates misconduct to ruthlessly shared this guy,” he said, referring to the allegations of the hospital and the reporting of Prublica. “I think it should be held accountable.”

Weiner previously denied the claim that he had overwritten patients, including Dibble and criticized the medical review.

In the months after the dismissal of Weiner, thousands of friends and former patients formed Facebook groups to support him. They collected donations to rent an advertising table with the inscription in Helena: “We are standing with Dr. Wine. “On Tuesday, Dayna Schwartz, who led these efforts, posted on Facebook:” Congratulations on her licensing renewal !! “

A spokesman for the State Board of Medical Examiner transferred a request for comments to renew Weiners's license to his roof agency, the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. A spokesman for the agency did not answer questions before the publication.

St. Peter did not respond to inquiries about comments to renew the Weiner license.

The Medical Board of Directors generally do not publish any information about current or earlier investigations, unless allegations of professional misconduct are underpinned. If this is the case, a doctor license can be suspended or revoked for many reasons, including billing fraud, unprofessional prescription practices and failure to adequately document patient care.

The criminal investigation, led by Montana General Prosecutor, is only a few months after the Federal Government decided at St. Peter because it asserted incorrect claims when she invoiced the health programs for Weiner's services. The hospital agreed to repay 10.8 million US dollars. The hospital has previously announced that high -quality care and “This situation is isolated for a single, former doctor, and we are still confident in the extraordinary care of St. Peter's medical staff”.

The federal prosecutor also sued Weiner and accused him of conveying fraudulent practices, including the settlement of Federal Insurance programs for unnecessary treatments or more expensive treatments. Weiner denied the allegations and moved through lawyers to reject the case.