Johnstown dentist facing felony charges

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WJAC) — A Johnstown dentist is facing felony charges Wednesday, after police said he was illegally prescribing pain medication.

Police said 56-year-old Thomas Bach, whose dentistry office is located on 504 Franklin Street, is facing a number of charges involving the administering of controlled substances by practice and refusing to keep records.

Police say they were contacted by a DEA agent in July 2018 who told them there were reports of large quantities of hydrocodone and ibuprofen being ordered to Bach’s practice.

Investigators said the DEA contacted Bach in February of 2017 to speak with him and conduct an audit of his controlled substances.

Police said Bach told investigators that he doesn’t keep records when prescribing controlled substances or charge his patients for them when he does.

Bach also told investigators he kept the drugs at his home because he worried about them being stolen from his office after hours, he said whatever he needed to use, he would take with him to work each day, according to police.

Investigators said Bach told them he had dispensed medication earlier that February morning to two patients.

They said when he gave the investigators the files proving he did, it appeared that he had quickly written in the prescribing of substances to the patients before giving them to the DEA.

The DEA said Bach gave them any remaining medication he had at his home and said Bach also surrendered his DEA registration the same day too.

Police said investigators looked into Bach’s order history from the company Henry Schein, which is a medical, dental and veterinarian supplier that also handles prescription drugs.

Bach’s order history showed that from Feb. 1, 2015 to Jan. 23 2017, the dentist had ordered about 700 tramadol HCL tablets and about 1,900 hydrocodone tablets, according to the DEA.

Investigators said they discovered that Bach had called prescriptions of tramadol for his wife and hydrocodone and tramadol for himself.

They said the prescriptions were submitted and paid for by insurance companies.

Police said a search warrant was issued and police went to Bach’s office Jan. 17, but he wasn’t there.

They said they spoke to a dental assistant who was there and she told them she had worked for Bach for about 20 years and never saw him giving patients medication in the office.

The dental assistant told investigators that when medication orders came to the office, the invoices and drugs would be taken home with Bach, court documents show. They said she told them medication wasn’t kept in the office because Bach would always write paper prescriptions to be filled at the pharmacy.

Bach was called to the dentist office to talk to police and when asked for his and his wife’s medical records, police said he told them he didn’t keep any.

When police asked Bach what was happening to all of the medication over the years, they said Bach told them he was giving it to his late mother-in-law who had Parkinson’s disease.

Police said he told them he took the rest of the medication for himself, even using his wife’s name to write the Tramadol prescriptions, not to draw suspicion.

Bach is free Wednesday after his wife posted 10 percent of his $50,000 bail.

He's facing two felony charges of obtaining controlled substances by using forged prescriptions and also falsifying records and a misdemeanor charge of refusing to keep proper records required by the DEA.

His preliminary hearing is scheduled for the end of the month.

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