Podiatrist Prommersberger facing 79 felonies involving narcotics

YOUNGSTOWN

Thirty patients received opioid prescriptions with “minimal examination” from a Boardman foot doctor, according to a Mahoning County indictment.

County Prosecutor Paul Gains and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced that Dr. James Prommersberger, 55, a Windham Court podiatrist, is facing 79 felony counts of illegal processing of drug documents, trafficking in drugs, Medicaid fraud and grand theft, according to a Friday release from Gains’ office.

Prommersberger illegally prescribed opioid medications hydrocodone and tramadol as well as the muscle relaxant carisoprodol to 30 patients between 2013 and 2017, according to the indictment.

The investigation began in 2014, Gains said. The Ohio Pharmacy Board, responding to area pharmacies’ complaints of the doctor’s “suspicious” opioid prescriptions, sent undercover agents to Prommersberger’s Boardman office, where they were prescribed opioids “with only a minimal examination,” reads the release. Patient files were also seized through a search warrant of the offices.

“An examination of those files by a medical expert revealed that there was no medical necessity to prescribe the opioids,” the release states.

Read more about the situation in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.