HHS suspended Kearney-area doctor’s medical license for 90 days
By LORI PILGER
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KEARNEY, Nebraska (Lincoln Journal Star) — A Kearney doctor’s medical license has been suspended for 90 days as part of a settlement.
Dr. Annette Miller of Gibbon initially had been set for a contested hearing Feb. 4 on a petition for disciplinary action filed by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers’ office.
But instead, Dr. Timothy Tesmer, chief medical officer of the Division of Public Health with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, filed an order in December on an agreed settlement, according to HHS records.
Miller waived a right to a hearing on the allegations, which she “neither admits nor denies.”
She now is nearing the end of her 90-day suspension, which started Nov. 22. But the reinstatement of her physician license is at the discretion of the department and “upon approval of the Nebraska Board of Medicine and Surgery.”
The facts alleged in the petition for disciplinary action, taken as true as part of the settlement, say on May 24, Miller was seen by co-workers to have an IV running in her arm, while she was providing patient care in the emergency department at the Kearney Regional Medical Center.
Assistant Attorney General Mindy Lester said Miller said she was dehydrated.
Less than a month later, Miller was taken into protective custody by law enforcement after a nearly three-hour standoff where she had a gun and fired it several times while appearing to drink alcohol.
Lester said later that month Miller was admitted to 30-day, in-patient treatment in Texas for alcohol use and then to a residential bridge program.
In an interview with an HHS investigator, Miller denied ever working while impaired by alcohol, the assistant attorney general said.
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