State suspends Richland doctor’s license a month after DEA raid

A Richland doctor has been suspended amid allegations she prescribed excessive amounts of controlled substances and repeatedly violated the standard of care for patients.

Dr. Janet S. Arnold isn’t allowed to practice in Washington while under the suspension from the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission.

She has 20 days to respond and to request a hearing. She couldn’t be reached Friday by the Herald.

Arnold owns Desert Wind Family Practice on Wellsian Way.

Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration searched the practice last month. The agency didn’t release details or explain the focus of its search.

Arnold’s suspension was announced Friday. Documents from the state health department said she “repeatedly prescribed controlled substances in a manner violating the standard of care and in such a volume as to create a risk of misuse or diversion, posing serious risks of patient harm and death.”

She prescribed opiates for patients with chronic, non-cancer pain “that was neither evidence-based nor consistent with established guidelines. (She) did not routinely recommend non-opiate treatment for her patients, regularly prescribed chronic opiates dosed above 120 MED/day, and did not refer these patients for specialty consultation” as per established rules, documents said.

She also “failed to address blatant red flags of opiate misuse and failed to seek consultation for patients with poorly compensated mental health diagnoses or histories of substance abuse,” the documents said, adding that she also prescribed other scheduled medications “in a manner that placed her patients at risk.”

She routinely failed to check vital signs, take a history of drug or alcohol use, perform adequate physical exams, establish symptoms or make diagnoses to support drug treatment, documents said.

Similar issues also extended into her treatment of other health issues, documents said.

And, documents said, many chart notes recorded patients being seen and/or prescribed medications by Arnold’s significant other, who “has no apparent medical background and is not licensed as any type of care provider by the state of Washington.”

The issues dated back to at least 2014, documents said.

This story was originally published June 2, 2017 at 10:32 AM with the headline "State suspends Richland doctor’s license a month after DEA raid."