Dyersburg Doctor Charged With Insurance Fraud
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A West Tennessee doctor was accused of illegally prescribing medicine. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said it had been investigating Doctor Debra McKenzie for years. She was indicted, but was still practicing medicine on Wednesday, after she posted $15,000 bond. The TBI said since 2008 it had been investigating Dr. McKenzie; after a former employee made accusations about her to authorities. A patient of Dr. McKenzie said she walked out of the McKenzie Medical Center on Wednesday very unhappy. “I told her that I had really bad anxiety, and she couldn’t write me out any kind of prescription for any anxiety medication,” said the patient, who did not want to be identified. The patient said the doctor told her she was not going to write her a prescription because she just got in trouble. She said in the past she had been baffled by McKenzie’s choice in prescriptions for her. “She also wrote me an anti-depressant, which I don’t need anti-depressants because I’m not depressed,” added the patient. Neighbors of McKenzie that 7 Eyewitness News spoke with said they would never go to her for medical services. “She doesn’t really sit down and talk to you much, she just takes you in the office and writes out her prescription and walks out,” said the concerned patient. The TBI arrested the Dyersburg doctor on Monday, after she was indicted by a Dyer County grand jury, on one county each of TennCare fraud, insurance fraud, and improperly prescribing a controlled substance. “We had an agent posing as an undercover patient in Dr. McKenzie’s office and was able to obtain prescription narcotics from her without medical examination,” said TBI spokeswoman, Kristin Helm. Helm said she did not know how many patients McKenzie wrote prescriptions for without a medical examine, but their undercover agent was successful more than 6 times, every time he went. The female patient said although she had been a patient of Dr. McKenzie’s for several years, she would not t be back. “If she can’t give me the help that I need, then I need to find another doctor.” According to records of the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners, Dr. McKenzie was fined $2,000 in 2010 for failing to maintain her office. That included not properly disposing of needles or training employees, and having expired medications. According to Helm, McKenzie was the sole practitioner at McKenzie Medical Clinic on Lake Road in Dyersburg where she specialized in obstetrics and gynecology, but routinely treated patients for conditions outside her specialty. She is scheduled to appear in court on February 21.
