Dr. Jacques Roy, Indicted For Masterminding $350 Million Health Care Fraud, Was A Lousy Doctor To Boot!

DallasNews.com writer Brooks Egerton revealed yesterday that Jacques Roy, the Texas (by way of Quebec) doctor who stands accused of masterminding the largest Medicare/Medicaid health care fraud in U.S. history, was also an extravagantly lousy doctor. So bad that the Texas Medical Board put hims on probation from 2001 until 2006. The probationary period itself saw the good (er, “the bad”) doctor ducking ad weaving while trying to subvert his probation-related limitations on practicing medicine. The board, however, ended Dr. Roy’s probation early, and the reason they did so would be a subject for farce if it wasn’t so true an indictment of the shocking way in which doctors protect other doctors by turning a deaf ear to malpractice. Read Ms. Egerton’s excellent article below to learn just how bad a doctor Doctor Roy was, and how a combination of spousal love and the Texas Medical Board, Doctor Roy “got his groove back” . . . until he got perp walked yesterday, that is.

Dr. Jacques Roy is “a danger to the community,” federal prosecutors said Tuesday in seeking to keep him jailed without bail. They were referring to the millions he’s accused of stealing from taxpayers in a five-year Medicare fraud scheme.

But others have long called Roy a danger of a different sort — a threat to patient safety. His failures have been linked to at least one patient’s death and another’s permanent loss of sexual function, public records show.

The Texas Medical Board, however, let him keep his license despite evidence of persistent misconduct.

Roy’s documented troubles date to the mid-1990s. The medical board investigated why he’d had “three or more malpractice claims” in five years, but it took no action.

By the late 1990s, he was working at an emergency room in Sherman, having an affair with a patient and writing her dozens of prescriptions for painkillers. She died in a one-car crash with a “markedly elevated” level of one of those drugs in her blood, an autopsy found.

The board responded in 2001 by putting Roy on five years of probation. He later told The Dallas Morning News that he hadn’t overprescribed drugs and couldn’t find another job as a doctor.

Caring for inmates

Dallas County came to the rescue in late 2001, hiring him to care for jail inmates. He was fired six months later for “many issues involving his quality of practice,” according to a county memo obtained by The News.

Among the issues cited: failure to care for an anemic patient, “incomplete prescription writing” and “writing a prescription for a controlled substance” without a license to do so — a direct violation of his probation.

When the board staff member assigned to monitor Roy asked him why he had lost his job, he said “that the group he works for lost the contract for covering the jail,” according to state records.

‘Very suspect’

The records identified the controlled substance as Valium, a sedative. Roy “stated he was unaware the Valium was a controlled substance” — a statement that a medical board official, in a 2002 memo, called “very suspect.”

Another 2002 memo said that “Dr. Roy needs a disciplinary hearing for violation of his [probation] order.” But there is no indication in board records that he received any punishment.

In 2003, Roy asked for permission to work at the Dallas office of Boston Medical Group, an international chain of clinics that treat erectile dysfunction. Board records describe him as a general practitioner and show no sign that he has specialized training in urology or sexual medicine.

“This is an ideal job for me since the patients are male only and there is no narcotic prescription involved,” he wrote to the board. It initially balked because of concern that he would not be practicing around other doctors, as required by his probation.

‘Frequently assessed’

But the board relented after Roy and a Boston Medical official assured it that he would be watched. He “will be frequently assessed and appraised by our highest standards of care,” wrote Dr. Marianne LaBarbera. She identified herself as “medical director of Boston Medical Group, Texas.”

In a letter dated July 16, 2003, the board told Roy that he could work at Boston Medical in Dallas. Yet that same day, he was working at the chain’s Houston clinic, according to Texas appeals court records, and prescribed medication that a patient “was to inject into his penis when he desired to achieve an erection.” The man injected himself and still had an erection two days later, “so he returned to see Dr. Roy,” the records say.

“Dr. Roy attempted to decompress the erection for approximately 10 hours, and when these attempts were unsuccessful, he instructed [the patient] to check into a nearby hotel. After several hours without change, Dr. Roy instructed [the patient] to go to the emergency room at Memorial Hermann Hospital, where he underwent surgical decompression.

“This surgery left [the patient] impotent.”

Experts say such unrelenting erections need emergency-room treatment much sooner.

The victim was a diabetic in his 30s who sometimes was able to have sex before visiting Boston Medical, said his lawyer, Dr. Brian Tew. He said his client received a six-figure settlement.

No discipline

It’s not clear whether the board learned of this matter. But again, no discipline resulted.

In a brief interview three years ago, Roy told The News that he didn’t agree to the settlement. He also defended Boston Medical, calling it “a great system” that “helps a lot of people.”

Roy said he worked in both the Houston and Dallas clinics and generally was the only doctor on duty.

He added that he did not want his past written about. “I have a big practice in town today,” he said then.

Roy left Boston Medical by late 2003. He told the medical board that he quit because it was investigating another doctor at the Houston clinic.

That physician was Dr. Wasim Khan. And the clinic where they worked “was effectively operating a retail pharmacy, charging excessive fees and misrepresenting [Khan] as a specialist in ‘men’s health,’” according to a 2004 disciplinary order from the board.

But Roy went unpunished again. He next asked for permission to work at HealthCare Medical Associates, one of several businesses whose names he has registered over the past decade.

Again, the board questioned whether he would be working around other doctors. Roy had colleagues at the practice write in support of him.

Among them was Dr. Timothy Werner, whom the board disciplined in 2004 for treating his wife without documentation during detoxification and allowing her access to his prescription pads. She died in what was initially called a suicide. He was later charged with murder, but prosecutors said the evidence was unclear and dropped charges.

The medical board allowed Roy to work at HealthCare Medical Associates, to be supervised by Dr. Louise Lamarre. She wrote the board repeatedly to praise his work and to urge that he be released from probation early.

“Dr. Roy has shown exemplary skill as a physician with excellent medical knowledge, appropriate decision on treatment and very proper relationship with the patients,” one of Lamarre’s letters said.

There is no indication in board records that she ever identified herself as Roy’s wife, although one letter that he sent the board included a return address — of a private residence in Rockwall — with his and her name on it.

Probation lifted

The board lifted his probation in 2005, nearly a year early. It found that Roy was “in compliance with the terms and conditions of his order.” He practiced medicine virtually unrestricted until he was arrested Tuesday.

Leigh Hopper, a spokeswoman for the board, said she could not address the specifics of The News’ findings because she lacked immediate access to Roy’s probation file.

“What you’re describing sounds bizarre,” she said. “It sounds like problems that the board previously identified and has changed its policies to address.”

Hopper said the board would not knowingly allow a doctor on probation to be supervised by a spouse. And today, she said, all doctors working with a probationer must undergo background checks.

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