Kansas Medical Board Permits Psychiatrist Brian Lahey to Continue to Practice Under Heavy Restrictions, Including Supervision by Convicted Psychiatrist Ethan Bickelhaupt

May 16, 2025

On February 25, 2025, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts issued an order regarding the practice of disgraced psychiatrist Brian Lahey. The Board’s “Approval of Request to Change Practice Site; Worksite Monitor; and Patient Chaperone” allows Lahey to transition from one place of part-time practice (Rolling Hills Creative Living in Albany, Missouri) to part-time practice at Interpersonal Psychiatry in Overland Park and Topeka, Kansas.

This is the latest in a series of Board orders which began in 2020, permitting Lahey to return to practice under numerous restrictions, after his license was suspended.  

Lahey disciplinary time line: 

• On July 24, 2018, the Board issued an Emergency Order of Suspension of Lahey’s license for committing violations against the Healing Arts Act, stating that the Board found grounds for disciplinary action and that an imminent danger to public health and safety existed.   

• On April 16, 2019, the Board issued a Final Order suspending his license indefinitely, citing that Lahey had an inappropriate intimate relationship with a patient, entered into inappropriate financial obligations with a patient, continued to treat patients after his license was emergently suspended, and generally failed to set appropriate boundaries with his patients. It cited that Lahey committed an act or acts of unprofessional or dishonorable conduct by committing an act or acts of sexual abuse, misconduct, or other improper sexual contact, which exploited the licensee-patient relationship with a patient.

• On June 19, 2020, the Board issued a Consent Order reinstating Lahey’s license with limitations, which included the requirement of a workplace monitor to supervise his practice. 

• On May 13, 2024, the Board issued a Final Order approving part-time employment with practice site and work site monitors and a patient chaperone.

The Kansas Board suspended Lahey’s license in 2018 due to drug use. At the time, the Board board was also investigating whether he had engaged in sex with patients, exploited a patient relationship for financial gain, and improperly prescribed opioids and other drugs. Lahey continued to practice in Missouri after his Kansas license was suspended. Kansas Board documents state that Lahey began a relationship with the mother of a 10-year-old patient who later became a patient herself and then a co-worker. Lahey was also accused of having sexual relationships with two other female patients. He denied having a romantic relationship with one of the women and denied having a sexual relationship with the other while she was his patient.

Even prior to the suspension of his Kansas medical license, Lahey was in trouble with the law: in March 2017, Johnson County, Kansas prosecutors charged him with violating a protective order sought by his ex-wife. He pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and received a suspended sentence.

In April 2019, a judge in Cass County, Missouri, where Lahey was divorced, found him in contempt for failing to make child support, maintenance and attorney fee payments totaling nearly $132,000. The judge ordered him jailed.

The current Kansas order was the result of Lahey seeking to full-time employment at Interpersonal Psychiatry. However, while the Board granted Lahey permission to terminate employment at his previous clinic, he was not permitted to practice full-time. Restrictions which were initially set forth on June 19, 2020 were continued:    

• He may practice in an institutional setting. 

• He may practice in a group practice but shall not treat female patients. 

• He shall not treat any patients without having a patient chaperone present at all times.  

• He shall not practice in a solo, office-sharing, or similar setting. 

• He shall have a workplace monitor to supervise his practice for a period of two years. 

• He shall maintain impeccable professional boundaries and will have no personal or social relationship with patients, regardless of gender. 

• After a period of five years Lahey may request the Board to modify or terminate the provision.

Lahey is further limited to seeing a maximum of 10 male patients per day for in-person psychiatric visits at only the Lawrence office. Lahey is limited to practicing two days per week and is not permitted to see patients using telemedicine.

In addition to being required to have a chaperone and a workplace monitor, Lahey is required to have a clinical monitor. The Board approved Lahey’s request to have psychiatrist Ethan Bickelhaupt fill this role.

Bickelhaupt has a criminal and disciplinary history of his own: In September 2010, a federal judge placed him on three years of probation, relative to his February 2010 guilty plea to one count of unlawfully distributing controlled substances and one count of unlawfully obtaining controlled substances.

Bickelhaupt admitted the crimes took place in 2006 while he worked at the VA Medical Center in Topeka.

According to the plea agreement he signed, Bickelhaupt issued prescriptions to individuals who weren't patients. Those persons filled the prescriptions at pharmacies in Topeka and Lawrence, then gave the controlled substances to Bickelhaupt for his personal consumption. On occasion, he would compensate them by giving them cash or controlled substances.

On December 14, 2007 the Kansas Board indefinitely suspended Bickelhaupt’s license: “The Board has received reports that (Bickelhaupt) issued prescriptions for Adderall and Klonopin in the names of two high school students and then paid the students cash to pick up the prescriptions from at least two different pharmacies. The students then gave (him) the prescriptions….”

Sources: Final Order: Approval of Request to Change Practice Site; Worksite Monitor; and Patient Chaperone In the Matter of Brian P. Lahey, M.D., Kansas License No. 04-33861, KSBHA Docket No. 19-HA00005, Before the Board of Healing Arts of the State of Kansas, February 25, 2025; “Overland Park Psychiatrist Accused Of Having Sex With A Patient Loses His License,” KCUR 89.3 (Overland Park, KS), April 17, 2019, URL: https://www.kcur.org/post/overland-park-psychiatrist-accused-having-sex-patient-loses-his-license#stream/0, and “Former psychiatrist pleads guilty in drug case,” Wichita Eagle, February 22, 2010; Final Order In the Matter of Ethan Bickelhaupt, M.D., Kansas License No. 04-18225, Docket No. 08-HA00040, Kansas Board of Healing Arts and Steve Fry, "Convicted doctor gets probation," Topeka Capital-Journal, September 3, 2010.