State Issues Emergency Suspension for License of Dr. Timothy Wong

For Immediate Release
Friday, June 24, 2011
Christopher Portante
(302) 750-8353

(DOVER, DE) – Based on a formal complaint filed by the Attorney General’s Office, Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock and the President of the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline, Raymond L. Moore, Sr., this week ordered an emergency suspension of Dr. Timothy Wong’s medical license for committing serious violations of the Delaware Medical Practice Act. The order maintains that Dr. Wong, who has been on licensure probation since March 1, 2011, has engaged in activities which present a clear and immediate danger to the public health. Dr. Wong’s specialty is Family Practice, but he practices mainly pain management.

The Complaint and Motion for Emergency Suspension allege, among other things, that Dr. Wong has continually prescribed controlled substances to patients without conducting proper medical examinations, without creating and maintaining proper records or logs, without ordering tests, without requesting medical records, without contacting patients’ primary care or other treating physicians, without obtaining patients’ informed consent, and with little or no discussion or establishment of any underlying medical or psychiatric basis or need for medication. He also allegedly abandoned hundreds of patient medical files, refused to provide medical records to treating physicians and patients, and falsified patient medical records.

Earlier this month, the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation received a call from a pharmacist in Idaho who expressed his concerns about prescriptions for controlled substances written by Dr. Wong for a resident of Idaho. The complaint against Dr. Wong alleges that, between January 7, 2010 and May 26, 2011, he wrote at least 83 prescriptions for 5,330 tablets of Schedule II and IV controlled substances – an average of five prescriptions and 333 tablets per month – for the Idaho resident without ever conducting a physical examination, without requesting medical records, and without contacting the individual’s other treating physicians.

The Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline had already placed Dr. Wong on licensure probation for at least six months and had ordered him to complete a continuing education course in ethics and medicine which was to include the appropriate prescribing of narcotics. The basis for the probation was the discovery that, as a result of his incompetence and lack of professional judgment, a substantial amount of narcotics had been criminally diverted.

Dr. Wong had written 19 prescriptions for more than 1,500 tablets of controlled substances over a four month period for a patient who was incarcerated in a Delaware prison. He provided the prescriptions to family members to fill, but never followed up to determine if the patient had received them. Dr. Wong continued to write prescriptions for the patient without following up with her or the prison medical staff regarding her care. The patient never received the medications, and the five individuals who filled the prescriptions written by Dr. Wong were criminally charged and pled guilty to obtaining controlled substances by fraud.

In January 2011, investigators from the Division of Professional Regulation served a subpoena on the professional practice at 1201 Philadelphia Pike in Claymont – where Dr. Wong had rented space between October 2007 and February 2008 – for documents related to a formal complaint. At that time, they discovered that Dr. Wong had left behind over 800 patient files. The complaint alleges that Dr. Wong abandoned the files three years earlier.

The State’s complaint filed on June 17, 2011 contends that Dr. Wong did not maintain a medical office but occasionally used an office at 2616 Philadelphia Pike, Suite B, in Claymont.

As a result of the action taken this week, Dr. Wong’s status has been updated on the Division of Professional Regulation’s online license verification service. This useful tool lists the status of 71,000 professional licensees in Delaware and can be accessed by visiting dpr.delaware.gov and clicking :Verify License Online.”

The mission of the Division of Professional Regulation is to ensure the protection of the public’s health, safety and economic well-being through administrative and investigative services to Governor-appointed boards/commissions.

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