SUBURBAN WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- The office is dark.
The door is locked.
The phone is disconnected.
Dr. Dana Richard's patients are finding out the hard way that their appointments are apparently cancelled.
The suburban West Palm Beach office closed two weeks ago with no explanation and patients claim their records are stuck inside.
The patients say they rely on Richard to write prescriptions for the pain.
Now they are in a bind.
Eileen Murphy tells NewsChannel 5, "Its not only my pain and my condition it means I'm in a lot of trouble and am gonna wind up in the hospital."
Some worried that the doctor was in trouble too.
"I don't know if he's ill or if something drastic happened to him. I have no idea," says Linda LoFaro.
NewsChannel 5 tracked the doctor down tonight and he claims he's locked out of the office too.
He blames the problem on a contractual battle with a management company he hired last year called Hygea of Palm Beach.
Richard claims when he decided not to renew with Hygea, they changed the locks.
He tells NewsChannel 5, "They claimed they're gonna shut me down and they did."
For now, he's left on a "forced vacation."
He apologizes that he has no access to the medical records his patients need so badly, and no way to contact the thousands he claims rely on him.
Richard says, "Unfortunately the ones who are paying the biggest toll basically are my patients."
Manuel Iglesias with Hygea of Palm Beach, LLC tells NewsChannel 5 he can't comment about the matter.
He said the company's attorney will call NewsChannel 5 on Tuesday with a response.
Richard plans to bring this matter before a judge.
Until then he says his patients can contact him at DrDRichard@aol.com.
