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HELENA — Montana regulators suspended the license of a nurse practitioner after he acknowledged prescribing large amounts of oxycodone to a patient and then sharing the drug, records show.
A complaint was filed with the Board of Nursing against Troy Warling in June 2016 after doctors in Hamilton treated a patient for opiate withdrawal, the board said in its recent order.
The patient reported his arrangement with Warling, who was practicing in Missoula.
Doctors found the patient had been prescribed 1,400 oxycodone pills in a three-week period, the board said.
Warling told regulators he wrote prescriptions for oxycodone and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and bought about half of them back from the patient over about 18 months. He said he was treating the patient for pain and was not feeding an addiction, the report said.
An investigation found the drug sharing actually went on for 28 months and involved nearly 37,000 oxycodone pills. Doctors in Hamilton said the patient’s addiction issues were well known.
Warling acknowledged a history of addiction that includes prescribing opiates to friends in 2010 on the condition that they share with him, the board said. He also sought addiction treatment.
The board received a complaint in February that Warling had withdrawn from monitoring under the Montana Nurses Assistance Program before completing the program. At that time, Warling said he was living in Minnesota.
His Montana nursing license and advanced practice RN certification expired in December.
Warling did not participate in a meeting of the board’s renewal screening panel on March 30. The board suspended his license immediately, finding public health, safety or welfare required the action.
Warling could ask for a hearing over the suspension.
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