SALON

Tuesday, Sep 18, 2012 4:30 PM UTC

Spokane doc gets $600K and apology from state

By

Topics: From the Wires,

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A Spokane dermatologist won a $600,000 settlement and rare public apology from Washington state health officials who went public with charges of drug abuse and medical fraud based on a bogus tip from his ex-wife.

The payment to Dr. William “Phil” Werschler is among the largest settlements in decades by the state Department of Health involving a physician, agency officials said. The public apology might be the first of its kind in the state.

In a separate lawsuit, Werschler collected more than $100,000 from his ex-wife, Kara Werschler, who did not immediately return a message.

She ignited the investigation late in the couple’s bitter divorce by filing an anonymous complaint studded with accusations of office cocaine binges, sex orgies with staff and patients, hiring prostitutes and falsification of medical drug records.

The case decimated his practice and personal life, he told The Spokesman-Review last week.

“This was a good faith effort to protect the public, but there were oversights during the investigation,” the state’s official apology said. “We apologize for those oversights and regret any damage done to Dr. Werschler’s personal goodwill, reputation and the distress this has caused his family.”

Despite the apology, Phil Werschler, 54, said there remains an undercurrent of suspicion.

“I have the scarlet letter on me as a doctor, a husband and father,” he said.

His children were teased at school. Pharmaceutical and research companies withdrew his professional affiliations. Longtime friends and medical colleagues distanced themselves.

State officials said they were duty bound to investigate the anonymous allegations that eventually looped back to the ex-wife, according to depositions. But the state’s two-year probe spiraled into conspiracy, vendetta and a complete loss of investigative protocol and perspective, said Phil Werschler’s attorneys.

Top health officials now use the case as a teaching tool, and “new practices are in place to prevent these types of oversights in the future,” the official apology said.

Department of Health spokesman Donn Moyer said the case helped prompt a review and policy change in matters of investigations of licensed professionals.

Dwight Correll, who conducted the investigation, kept his job despite Phil Werschler’s demands he be fired. Karen Jensen, the assistant health secretary who oversees DOH investigative services, said Correll continues to investigate health care professionals in Spokane.

The case has not disarmed investigators or muted the state’s role of investigating medical providers, she said.

Phil Werschler said the entire episode is the most traumatic thing that ever happened to him. He pondered moving to another town and starting over with his second wife but decided to stay.

“This is my home,” he said. “I won’t leave.”

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations