Milford doctor who prescribed more than 2 million pills indicted

Josephine Peterson | The News Journal

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A doctor at a Milford practice has been charged with prescribing more than 2 million doses of oxycodone over a two-year span, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

Patrick Titus, a medical doctor and owner of Lighthouse Internal Medicine, was indicted with 14 counts of unlawful distribution and dispensing of controlled substances and one count of maintaining a drug-involved premise earlier this month, the announcement said.

Prosecutors said Titus issued many prescriptions that were not for legitimate medical purposes and seemed outside of normal prescribing practices. Titus wrote more than 25,000 prescriptions for oxycodone from July 2012 to December 2014.

Many patients paid cash for their visits. Initial doctor visits at Titus's practice were $225 upfront and $180 for monthly follow-up visits, court documents said.

"Despite some aspects of legitimate medical practice, Titus ran what was, in essence, a 'pill mill' — Titus's primary method of treating nearly all of his pain management patients was to prescribe highly addictive opioid controlled substances, including but not limited to: oxycodone, morphine, methadone, fentanyl and hydrocodone," the indictment stated.

While all licensed doctors are authorized to prescribe controlled substances, prosecutors said Titus "ignored red flags" that many of those addicted to the controlled substances show, like travelling far — even from out-of-state, paying cash while covered by Medicaid and inconsistent urine drug tests.

He also prescribed pain management patients opioids in high dosages, often without an examination or reviewing their medical records and recent test results, prosecutors said.

Federal law states that anyone knowingly filling false prescriptions is in violation of regulation.

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Contact Josephine Peterson at (302) 324-2856, jhpeterson@delawareonline.com, or Twitter at @jopeterson93.