Throughout Youngs year-long treatment of MY, Young failed to conduct pill counts, consult a state database meant to monitor the dispensing of controlled substances, and discuss with MY the risks of combining these drugs, according to the document. Well all be killed., It helped that Young had prominent friends he could call on for help. Rudins lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Lets see here, shes 23, Young says. After the hearing, Young was jailed pending his trial, which is currently scheduled to be held this spring. [Laughs.] And, to be honest, most of the time when you see a white male with a lot of tattoos, theyre usually not someone that hangs around with people of different races. 1986-present. ), Khazan: So doctors were kind of like, Okay.. Sound design by David Herman. Instead, Young began by kicking Reitz out of the business, Reitz told me. Make and Model: The only Billboard Hot 100 entry for new wave greats The Cars with an automotive title to match their band name . Calles: Doctors judged me because of my weight. Jeff wanted what was best for his patient. Why didnt anyone try to put a stop to this? I just had a lot of questions about how could this happen, you know? Fact-check by Michelle Ciarrocca and Jack Segelstein. Khazan: In his Periscope videos, Jeff insisted it was all fun and games, and people were just criticizing him because of his style. 0:06. (The synthesizer takes over the harmony, traipsing up and down the melody line before it quiets and the episode ends.). The scenes are meant to serve as a testament to the effectiveness of Youngs work hard, play harder ethos. There were reports of after-hours partiespossibly of Jeff having sex with his patients. November 7, 2018, marked the beginning of legal repercussions for Young. In 2011, the couple got in a fight while visiting Panama City Beach, Florida, and it was determined that Young did throw, or shove, Mrs. Young from the bed to the floor, the police report reads. Young had also allegedly begun siphoning off $100 almost every day from the clinic for his personal expenses, according to former employees. I mean, you could just kind of tell you could trust him. The clinic sat on a quiet road crammed with other medical practicesa sleep doctor, a dentist, a nephrologist, an orthodontisteach in its own brick McMansion. Patients would spend an hour or two in the waiting room, only to get a rushed exam and prescription. What a great, great, great, great song! But maybe, just maybe, he showed too much. 0:04. Yeah, thats prettythats very distressing. Some of his patients were police officers whom he would occasionally ask for favors. You can find Olgas written reporting on the Rock Doc at our website: http://www.theatlantic.com/experiment. In another, he totters around with an empty bottle of bourbon and pans the camera over to Phillips, who is asleep on the couch. She said, He latches on to young single mothers, and he rushes in and wants toquote-unquotesave them.. You could see, almost, when you were talking to him, he was listeningand he was thumping that pen to the beat of the music. I said, um, So what are yall doing after-hour? Young: Very nice. Whatever the inspiration, his new persona was good for business. Off camera, Young allegedly prescribed 1.4 million addictive pills and had sex with female patients. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and is currently in jail awaiting trial. Several people suggested suing for defamation a news station that reported on the incident. No one else seemed capable of treating all her problemsthroat swelling, high blood pressure, attention issues. And if you want to help other people discover the show, share it online with the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Young: (Over hard-rock music.) Khazan: But the pilot also showed the other side of Jeff. In April 2019, he was indicted on drug-trafficking charges, along with five other medical providers in Jackson, two of whom were the supervising physicians Young, as a nurse practitioner, was required to have. One of them was that I had the story all wrong. Khazan: To me, this felt immature, but it was all part of the brand. Young was indicted on drug-trafficking charges in April 2019. At first, Young seemed to Reitz like an affable, outgoing dad who loved rock and practiced medicine. Through his lawyer, Michael R. Working, Phillips did not return several requests for comment. It wasnt like any medical office Id ever been to. 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. Young: So, the, uh, the sinister ministerthat would be me (Fades under again.). They described Young to me as intelligent, as knowing almost as much as a doctor would knowor maybe even more. I mean, I worked at a bank for 15 years, and when youve worked at a bank and youve cashed checks, you have to judge people in two seconds. You may not like my piercings. Thats the big joke. Young appeared to operate more subtly. Khazan: When I first started talking to Jeffs former patients, I thought I understood this story. They painted a picture of the kind of medical office where you might actually want to hang out. The agents seized about 350 of Youngs patient charts and every computer in the office, according to Gutgsell, the former office manager, and the notice of seizure states that about 10,000 individual doses of hydrocodone were also taken. I dont like him asking out my daughter But even then, I still went to him, and my ex-husband still went to him. She appreciated that he asked about her grandkids. I am very nervous about it, she replied. Khazan: Online, Jeff would get drunk and smoke cigars. Many people trust doctors even when theyre harmed by their treatment, and a 2008 study found that people are more likely to spend time researching a new employer or a new car than vetting a new surgeon. Sometimes the two men would fight, and broken glass would litter the floor. 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. The former patient told me she became afraid to leave her house. The clinic sat on a quiet road crammed with other medical practicesa sleep doctor, a dentist, a nephrologist, an orthodontisteach in its own . 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. Youngs story raises the question of where care crosses into harm. Thrash metal, heavy metal, speed metal, blues, classical. ), Jeff Young: Are we live? (Fades under.). One patient she knew kept a cane in the trunk of her car and visited doctors offices with it in order to appear disabled so she could get more pills. People who criticized Young swiftly became his enemies. She was referred to Jeff by one of her friends. Khazan: The Rock Doc, Jeff Young, has been in jail for almost two years, awaiting trial. Thirty minutes. And I remember texting him back, and I remember saying, Jeff, he is a grumpy, old, country man, and hes not going to be an easy patient, but something is terribly wrong. And he said, I got that covered too. So I get my husband up there. Youngs devotees have maintained for years that he was a great man on a noble mission, and that people who spoke against him didnt understand his radical approach. Jackson nurse practitioner Jeffrey Young will await his opioid trafficking trial in jail, an appeals court decided Thursday. On my trip, I strolled by a glass case near the federal courthouse that held a large Bible opened to the Gospel of John. Ultimately, what hastened Youngs downfall is that some of the female patients asking him for drugs were undercover officers. Like, all these doctors who are really out of line and just writing so many scripts for so many addictive drugs, theyre really not being careful at all. Jacksons cheeriness, though, is at odds with the populations somewhat grim physical health. 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. Some people from the area said they had been harassed by Jeff and were afraid to speak out. FNP Jeff Young Jr. shares his life with his fans and promotes a healthy and fun lifestyle to make you "young" at heart! Many people in Jackson seemed to see themselves in Young. Khazan: This is Tanya Ballard. The story of how that doctor-patient communication broke downhundreds of thousands of timesis what Olga wanted to understand. Young seemed to have been expecting them. Federal prosecutors who charged him in a massive opioid bust say he overprescribed painkillers, often for "money, notoriety, and sexual favors." Young's case provides a rare gl Music by Parish Council (Dabbles), water feature (ariel), Arabian Prince in a UK World (The Feeling of Being on a Diet), Keyboard (Being There and My Atelier), and Column (The Art of Fun (Raj) and Sensuela), provided by Tasty Morsels. Hed wandered off into the woods. Were going to take the worst of the worst. Ballard: I dont believe Jeff overprescribed medication. I asked to speak with him for this story, but because of a gag order on the case, his lawyer declined interviews with me. Aw, shit! His case before the nursing board stalled for two more years. They liked his plainspoken approach to medicine, a profession typically associated with jargon and elitism. It surprised her, but Jeff was attuned to all that. Hey! Hey, are you paying attention? * This article has been clarified to more accurately convey the details of Gutgsell's plea. Some of the doctors who have been accused of exchanging drugs for sex in recent years threatened patients that they would cut off their supply of painkillers if they didnt gratify them. 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. MY came to PreventaGenix complaining of lower-back pain and numbness in his left arm, and asked for refills of pain medications. They didnt play Stairway to Heaven or have Periscope accounts. Jackson, Tennessee. Julia Longoria: Over 20 years ago, pharmaceutical companies began to market the use of a magical pill. Calles: I dont know. Its a shame, he told me, that Young got into so much legal trouble; think of all the people he might have helped. Even if the treatment doesnt work, it feels good to be listened to when youre used to being ignored. 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