San Antonio Express-News

October 8, 2011 Saturday
STATE&METRO Edition

Checking account costs doc his license

BYLINE: Karisa King, STAFF

SECTION: METRO AND STATE NEWS; Pg. 1B

LENGTH: 616 words

More than two years after the Texas Medical Board reprimanded a San Antonio psychiatrist for having sex with a woman he was treating, the agency has revoked the doctor’s license for overstepping boundaries with another patient.
Alan T. Lloyd, 51, who most recently worked at the Laurel Ridge Treatment Center, lost his license last month after the board concluded he had opened a joint checking account with the patient.
The board also found Lloyd had prescribed opiates and other dangerous drugs to the patient, who had a history of drug abuse.
According to medical board records, Lloyd was working in the Houston area when he treated the patient from May 2001 to April 2008 for bipolar disorder and psychotic thoughts.
The board also found Lloyd prescribed controlled substances to the patient without obtaining a medical history, failed to keep basic records, and continued to treat the patient with addictive drugs even after learning the patient had been a drug abuser.
Lloyd’s treatment of the patient preceded his arrival in San Antonio in 2009 when he moved here from Houston with a woman he had been counseling for suicidal thoughts and depression.
He was living with the woman and, until recently, had been working at Laurel Ridge Treatment Center, a psychiatric hospital that provides acute residential care.
In that case, the board found the woman was seeing him for psychotherapy twice a week when he began having sex with her. Lloyd denied that the relationship began while the woman was his patient, but he agreed to a board order in 2009 that required him to pay a $10,000 fine and complete a course on “professional boundaries.”
The Texas Medical Board was tightlipped about the most recent case. Citing privacy rules, agency spokeswoman Leigh Hopper declined to answer questions about the second patient’s gender, the circumstances surrounding the joint checking account or how the allegations surfaced.
She said the board stands by its decision in the first case, which allowed Lloyd to continue practicing psychotherapy after the sexual relationship came to light. The board sanction also alerted facilities to his troubles, she said.
“The board felt that here was somebody who with the right sanction could be remediated,” Hopper said. “The public reprimand is a red flag to any health care facility where he might want to have credentials.”
Having sex with a patient can be a felony in Texas. But Bexar County prosecutors said they hadn’t received any referrals about the cases involving Lloyd.
Laurel Ridge officials declined to discuss the matter, saying only that Lloyd no longer works at the hospital.
The facility also faces a lawsuit filed in March by the family of a 22-year-old man evaluated by Lloyd at the hospital.
The patient, Steven Santos Garcia, was involuntarily admitted to Laurel Ridge in February 2010 because he planned to kill himself, according to the lawsuit. The family claims Lloyd failed to put Garcia under constant observation despite Garcia’s repeated indications that he intended to commit suicide.
Instead, Lloyd placed Garcia under routine watch every 15 minutes, a schedule that other hospital staff maintained until he hanged himself in his hospital room, according to the lawsuit.
The attorney for Garcia’s family, Skip Simpson, said Lloyd’s background raises questions about his ability to make good choices and keep patients safe.
“If you’ve got a competency and judgment issue, it’s going to impact a number of your decisions,” said Simpson, who’s based in Dallas.
Lloyd didn’t respond to a message left at a phone number under his name. The medical board repeatedly attempted to notify him of the allegations, and Lloyd never responded to the complaint.