Jackson nurse practitioner Jeffrey Young will await his opioid trafficking trial in jail, an appeals court decided Thursday. Others accused me of seeking to discredit Young and slander his name. Not that half of the, you know powers that be are on some sort of whatever. If you speak against me, she remembers him saying, youre gonna regret it.. Khazan: LaRhonda didnt know anything about all of thisthe nursing board didnt make their investigation publicbut she was following him on social media. Music by Tasty Morsels and Nelson Nance. 40 members in the TDBauto community. Thats the big joke. And whats remarkable about the Rock Doc is that he streamed his private interactions with patients online. One person with knowledge of the case gave me a list of several women who, the person believed, were having sex with Young in exchange for drugs. The former patient told me she became afraid to leave her house. Without doing a physical exam, Young diagnosed MY with chronic lower-back pain and anxiety, the letter details. Khazan: Anyone online could watch him, say, biopsy someones skin while listening to hard rock. During one club night, Young bought Stephanie two drinks and his friends handed them to her. In July 2016, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation began looking into allegations that Young was overprescribing opioids. Hows it going? And the word that kept coming up when people described Jeff is comfortable. [A moment of indistinct crosstalk.] Some female patients opted for a service the clinic offered that Young called VIP status, in which they paid $500 a year to skip the waiting room and get Youngs cellphone number, one former employee said. They described Young to me as intelligent, as knowing almost as much as a doctor would knowor maybe even more. (A meandering guitar melody enters the background. With a heavy Mercy me, Phillips produces a pair of womens panties from a bag. (A long moment of music with no narration before it fades out. (Fades under.). Longoria: And one of those worst of the worst providers stood out from the others. And it was immediately clear that he is not your average medical provider. Editing by Katherine Wells, Julia Longoria, and Denise Wills. They liked his plainspoken approach to medicine, a profession typically associated with jargon and elitism. (A shudder, a gasp, then clapping and bubbling evolve into a background track.). Khazan: Online, Jeff would get drunk and smoke cigars. I visited Youngs clinic, but, through a staffer, he declined to speak with me. Young and the others were among dozens of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists arrested across seven states, targets in the nations largest takedown of medical providers related to prescription opioids. He was like, No, we do Botox and stuff for people, and dah-dah-dah-dah. The resulting addictions were blamed on reckless patients, rather than the fundamental chemistry of the opioids themselves. Khazan: I talked to many of Jeffs patients. The Tennessee Department of Health will not release audio recordings from a state investigation of "Rock Doc" Jeffrey W. Young II, a nurse practitioner who was allowed to stay in business . For the cosmetically minded, he hosted alcohol-fueled Botox parties. Branding himself the Rock Doc in a self-produced reality-TV pilot, Young would wear band T-shirts and blast music as he met with patients; he sometimes broadcast appointments and medical procedures on the live-streaming app Periscope. In May 2019, shortly after Young was indicted, I traveled to Jackson to try to understand the place that gave rise to the Rock Doc. In August 2015, Young prescribed MY what the letter calls a dangerous combination of an opioid, a benzodiazepine, and a muscle relaxant. We thought we would close out the daythe third Periscope of the daywith a little fireside chat. Purdue ad doctor: These drugswhich, I repeat, are our best, strongest pain medicationsshould be used much more than they are for patients in pain. The feds say Young . Calles: I just wasnt getting the care I needed. Christi Calles lived 30 miles away in Lexington. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. In an email to The Atlantic, Working said that when it came to Phillipss actions, there was no direct threat. Doctors offices make money by billing insurance companies for the services the providers perform, but it was hard to do this at PreventaGenix because the documentation for Youngs visits was so shoddy. Additional music by Nelson Bandela (04 HIDDEN FORCES and Auddi Sun 01 131). If a patient would text him a compliment, he would blast it all over Facebook, one former employee told me. But one thing that I was really curious about is how you actually went from having opioids being a thing that existed to having opioids be a thing that existed in peoples medicine cabinets. As many as three women a day allegedly came to his office for sex, though one former employee said Young might have had sex with more women after hours. Similarly, Young appeared to get the benefit of the doubt from virtually everyone. They entered the office and ordered the clinics staffers to lie on the floor. Do you feel safe with Mr. Young being out there? a prosecutor on the case, Andrew Pennebaker, asked Pickering in court. (The music opens up into a technologic rainforest as synthesizers mimic birdsong.). Khazan: Jeff had been good to Tanya in the clinic, which was an experience that she didnt usually have with doctors. Its light and upbeat.). The Daily Beast Automated News Feed No Censorship, Just News. Were going to take the worst of the worst. This striking 6ft 3in person embodies kanji tattoos on his biceps, and the effortlessly cool personality will describe how one sees him. Kevin: And were going to ask our friendsour warriors out thereto put these folks in their place, because, you know, the Golden Rule. Young seemed to have been expecting them. Together, they are the parents of three children and have seven grandchildren. According to police reports and court records, his second ex-wife, Dawn, claimed that throughout their relationship Young repeatedly pushed, threatened, and attempted to rape her. One of his patients, Helena Louvaris, told me that Young saved her life by putting her on a diet plan. Khazan: Jeff and his friend Kevin would often head to Periscope to defend themselves. The agency also searched Youngs cellphone. had lower back pain and complained of numbness in his left arm. A Professional theme for architects, construction and interior designers Purdue Pharma ad voice-over: Once youve found the right doctor and have told him or her about your pain, dont be afraid to take what they give you. There was no statement even made to the Feds. Employees I spoke with said he eventually was seeing 50 to 85 patients a day, compared with about 20 for the average doctor, and most of them seemed to be on opioids. It fit neatly, at least, into a story I was already really familiar with: It was the greedy provider who was allegedly taking advantage of his patients. A staffer, who declined to talk on the record, asked me why I was writing about him. After the hearing, Young was jailed pending his trial, which is currently scheduled to be held this spring. Thats okay. Khazan: Christi Calles was the patient who loved listening to Stairway to Heaven.. He tied the knot with his beautiful wife Dr. Petra. Jeff gets his nick name "Rock Doc" from his loyal patients. They married in 2014 and lived right above his vet clinic in Denver. Because he prescribed my opiates, and I took them as prescribed, and I had no problems with it. He was found in his bedroom, where the ambulance service discovered an empty syringe under his pillow and empty pill bottles on his bedside table that had been filled that month. I told him about this podcastexplained to him what a podcast was. Why didnt anyone try to put a stop to this? I just had a lot of questions about how could this happen., Further reading: The Hard-Partying, Rock-Obsessed Nurse at the Center of a Massive Opioid Bust. And Im like, Oh. [A beat.] In addition to steroid shots, Young prescribed her oxycodone, Xanax, and Adderall for her various medical issues. Ill meet you there. Young: (Serious, and a little angry.) Some of the pills had been prescribed by Young. (The synthesizer takes over the harmony, traipsing up and down the melody line before it quiets and the episode ends.). Downtown has an old-fashioned square, a few coffee shops striving for trendiness, and some suburban standbysMcAlisters Deli, Kohls, Chilis, Panera Breadall connected by well-maintained roads and featuring black oceans of parking lots. I mean, he had his doctors lab coat on. When I visited the clinic shortly before the hearing, Young had just finished up with a patient. To one patient, who he prescribed hydrocodone, amphetamines, and fentanyl, he said, I accept all insurance. Scott Deberry: Kinda made it start seeming like he was unprofessional. The music plays on.). Purdue voice-over: Often, it will be an opioid medication. Longoria: Olga Khazan is a staff writer at The Atlantic whos been covering the opioid epidemic for the last seven years. I had had back surgery, and I really had real problems that no one wanted to listen to me about. Yall partying in the office? [Chuckles.] (The DEA declined to comment on Youngs case for this story.) Hes prescribing drugs that people want, another man added. Even when they do, the boards are mainly composed of doctors and nurses peers, who can be reluctant to throw the book at one of their own, says Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a Vanderbilt University law professor who has studied medical boards. (They relied on messages obtained by agents during the investigations into Young.) It really meant a lot to me. One admitted that Young had flirted with her. One other factor might help account for his long, illicit career: the sheer number of patients who stood by him, almost to the very end. (Later, Phillips pleaded guilty to threatening a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was investigating Young. The allegations against Young seemed to take a toll on him, though. In another, he totters around with an empty bottle of bourbon and pans the camera over to Phillips, who is asleep on the couch. Purdue ad doctor: They dont wear out. He wasnt in pain. Tanya Ballard: I think people are Just didnt like Jeff. (Endo denied the allegations.) Its a small town; people talk. Many told me that they didnt want to talk on the record. (A snare hit plays, and the music changes tone again. (Dawn did not press charges at the time, and she declined to speak with me for this story.). The half-dozen former patients who did agree to talk with me were mostly people who wanted to defend Jeff. He would chitchat with his patients, ask them about their latest tattoos. every time. Young: Listen, I am for the patient. Jackson, TN USA. Watching this makes me really sad, one YouTube user commented on the Rock Doc pilot in 2019. Dang, Jeff What happened? Helena Louvaris and Melanie Lupino, two of Youngs staunch defenders, both declined to speak with me when I called them back to see if they still supported him after he was jailed. But that did not put a stop to Youngs ambitions. He blasted heavy metal at his private practice and filled his Instagram feed with photos of himself smoking cigars. Women were drawn to Young; he had a big house and was the first to buy everyones drink. I dont like him asking out my daughter But even then, I still went to him, and my ex-husband still went to him. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? When the local news station, WBBJ, posted a story about Youngs case on Facebook, the usual chorus of defenders raised their voices. To deal with the latter, the city, like so many others in America, has become ever more reliant on opioids. He was like a friend. Phillips, Youngs best friend, would often stop by the clinic to hang out and drink, according to former employees. Purdue voice-over: Some patients may be afraid of taking opioids because theyre perceived as too strong or addictive but that is far from actual fact. 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