Ellenton pain clinic ordered to close

MANATEE — A controversial Ellenton pain clinic has been ordered to close its doors after failing to obtain a permit to operate under Manatee County’s new pain clinic moratorium ordinance.

County Neighborhood Services officials notified the owner and operators of 1910 Medical Clinic that it was violating several criteria under the ordinance.

Those include the practicing doctor not being certified in pain management, and the majority of the clinic’s customers were from states other than Florida, according to Neighborhood Services Director Cheri Coryea.

Last month, Manatee commissioners unanimously adopted the emergency ordinance to ban the opening of new pain clinics in the county for 180 days. It will expire Oct. 1 when new state laws are projected to put tighter limitations on so-called “pill mills” across the state.

The ordinance also dealt with existing pain clinics in Manatee by requiring the businesses to register with the county for a permit to operate.

1910 Medical first appeared on Manatee Avenue West in the city of Bradenton, causing protestors to picket in front of the clinic because they said it was a “pill mill.”

In the clinic, patients paid cash for an appointment with a doctor, and after showing an MRI and undergoing an examination they could receive prescriptions for powerful pain pills such as oxycodone.

The clinic’s owner, Warren K. Gold, then moved his business to a strip center in Ellenton, at the entrance of the Plantation Bay neighborhood on U.S. 301, just north of Haben Boulevard.

On Friday, 1910 was closed and the parking lot devoid of the glut of vehicles with out-of-state license plates. The clinic’s owners have 15 days to appeal the permit denial, but the business cannot keep its doors open during the appeal period, Coryea said.

If a clinic operates without a permit, the owners can be fined and are subject to arrest. Manatee Sheriff Brad Steube said his agency had already been monitoring the clinic and that will continue.

“It looks like the ordinance did what it was designed to do,” Steube said.

County Commissioner Ron Getman also expressed relief that the clinic has closed its doors.

“It is obvious by the actions of the customers and the types of customers this business was attracting, it did not provide a positive benefit to the local medical community or to our community at large,” Getman said.

The action taken on 1910 is a symptom of a statewide reaction to a record number of overdoses reported in Florida as so-called “pill mills” popped up in the state where there are few regulating laws on the books. Steube proclaimed prescription pill abuse in Manatee has reached epidemic levels.

A study released earlier this month by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration showed that 9.8 percent of the people over 12 admitted to substance abuse facilities in 2008 were seeking treatment for abuse of “prescription pain relievers.” That was up from 2.2 percent in 1998.

Another SAMHSA study released last month also found emergency room visits to hospitals involving the non-medical use of prescription narcotic pain relievers more than doubled between 2004 and 2008.

“Our national prescription drug abuse problem cannot be ignored. I have worked in the treatment field for the last 35 years, and recent trends regarding the extent of prescription drug abuse are startling,” A. Thomas McLellan, deputy director of the National Drug Control Policy, said upon release of the studies.