State places psychiatrist Leonard M. Dileo over patients

December 3, 2011

On December 6, 2011, the Virginia Board of Medicine placed psychiatrist Leonard M. Dileo on indefinite probation with terms and conditions.

The Board's document states that, among other things, he failed to employ appropriate or acceptable pain management practices in his care six patients in that he: Failed to conduct or document physical examination of five of the patients before initiating treatment with narcotics; prescribed narcotics to six patients without diagnosing a medical condition warranting the use of such drugs; prescribed narcotics to three patients based on their unconfirmed representations regarding which drugs they were currently prescribed and without performing his own independent examination; rendered diagnoses in the absence of sufficient objective evidence and failed to determine the cause of the patients' symptoms prior to prescribing narcotics; prescribed OxyContin to one patient on her first visit without medical indication and continuing to prescribe it to her for at least five years without recording anything more descriptive than “chronic pain”; was notified by one patient's health insurer that the patient was getting simultaneous prescriptions for for two controlled substances from both Dileo and another prescriber and he failed to take responsive action.