Psychiatrists charged, disciplined nationwide August-October 2012

January 11, 2013

On October 24, 2012, the Virginia Board of Medicine reprimanded psychiatrist Daniel Acosta. The Board’s Consent Order states that on March 13, 2012, the North Carolina Medical Board reprimanded Acosta and ordered that he attend continuing medical education on record keeping and prescribing, based on findings that Acosta’s diagnosis, treatment and documentation of six patients failed to conform to the standards of acceptable and prevailing medical practice.

On September 7, 2012, the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs summarily suspended the license of psychiatrist Nan Beth Alt on charges of negligence, lack of good moral character, fraud or deceit in obtaining or attempting to obtain a third party reimbursement and allowing an unauthorized person to use her medical license. The complaint filed against Alt states that allowed her father, also a physician, to work out of her office and also wrote provided pre-signed prescriptions forms for him. The senior Alt’s medical license had previously been suspended.

On August 31, 2012, the Texas Medical Board ordered psychiatrist Robert Alan Woodward to pay an administrative penalty of $5,000 in addition to ordering him successfully complete at least eight hours of continuing medical education on the topic of risk management, among other terms and conditions. According to the Board’s report, this disciplinary action was the result of Woodward having failed to renew his controlled substance prescribing certificate when it expired in November 2010 and wrote more than 500 prescriptions for controlled substances before finally renewing it in March 2011. 

On September 17, 2012, the Medical Board of California issued an Accusation against psychiatrist Lana Le Chabrier, relative to Le Chabrier’s criminal conviction. According to the Board’s document, on or about July 12, 2012, Le Chabrier was found guilty of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud against the Medicare program. Le Chabrier was sentenced to six and a half years prison.

On or about October 18, 2012, Harvard psychiatrist David Herzog surrendered his licensed to the Massachusetts Board of Medicine. Herzog, who founded the Harris Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (an eating disorders center), was found to have engaged in sexual misconduct with a bulimic patient. Administrative findings describe and increasingly friendly relationship between Herzog and the patient, culminating in a sexual encounter in the patient’s home while her husband was away.