Reporting on Health: part 2 by William Heisel--Psychiatrist attempts to explain why he worked at the clinic--paycheck trumps quality patient care?

Bill Heisel's part 2 about a psychiatrist being a top 10 prescriber of antipsychotic Seroquel, Dr. Steve Balt--this time Balt attempts to explain why he worked at the clinic and while his license was on probation by the California Medica Board.

Top Prescribers: Do Medical License Restrictions Have Unintended Consequences?


Heisel's previous articles at Reporting on Health on Steven Balt, psychiatrist:

Top Prescribers: Do Medical License Restrictions Have Unintended Consequences?

One psychiatrist believes he was just one of many physicians with restricted medical licenses who take jobs that other doctors don’t want, often dealing with vulnerable populations.

Top Prescribers: How One Doctor Made Medi-Cal's Psychiatric Drug List

How does a doctor become a top prescriber of a psychiatric drug in one state’s Medicaid program? A "stunned" California psychiatrist tries to figure out why.

Q&A with Dr. Steven Balt, Part 2: Physician discipline should be better targeted

Last week Antidote introduced you to Dr. Steven Balt, the rare physician to have the courage to open up about his personal experiences with the physician discipline system. The first part of our interview was posted last week. The last part is below.

Q&A with Dr. Steven Balt, Part 1: Separating personal struggles from clinical success

When I wrote in 2009 about the death of the Medical Board of California’s diversion program, some medical board staffers expressed disbelief that I would say anything nice about a program that had been so controversial.

First article in the Heisel series


Doctors with addictions left hanging as diversion program
dies