lawsuits, still has the prescription pad. you don t want to answer any questions? reporter: why is this man, dr. lind webster walking away from our cameras? refusing to answer our questions. webster is considered a leader in the field of pain management. president of the american academy of pain medicine. over 100 million americans who are experiencing chronic pain. reporter: author of a scoring system used by doctors to distinguish pain killer addicts from legitimate patients. and he s the founder of this pain clinic in salt lake city. what is his reputation? his methods are incorporated into almost every single educational program about prescribing opioids and even accepted by the fda. reporter: if you start to ask around a bit, his reputation among some former patients and their families is astonishingly different. his reputation is he s known as dr. death. reporter: known as dr. death?
reporter: this is what carol ann was prescribed a year before her death. a pain killer and an anxiety medication. between 100 and 120 pills a month. now, fast forward one year, she was prescribed seven different drugs. painkillers, anti-anxiety pills, antidepressants and all told about 600 pills per month. the same steep climb in medications allegedly was seen among other patients who died after getting care at life tree. like this case. described in a medical malpractice claim recently filed against webster and life tree. a 42-year-old who was prescribed about 200 pills a month when she first started at life tree. that s a little more than six pills a day. seven years later, just before she died of an overdose, she was taking 1,158 pills per month. or about 40 each day. at the bosley home, a sad spectacle filled with denial and
five miles a day. reporter: several months after starting at life tree she kipped the opiods and went to rehab. she had lost weight and managing her pain on tylenol. only. reporter: soon afterward, he said, carolann got a call. she said, dr. webster has requested that we come down, both of us come down and meet with him. reporter: to roy bosley surprise during the appointment he said webster suggested she get back on narcotic pain killers. and my response to him was, my wife is addicted. reporter: about a year after that appointment, after taking his advice, carol ann bosley overdosed again, this time it was fatal. but her story does not end there. weeks after her death, the medical examiner had ruled her death a suicide. i said, why did you label it
overdoses began unfolding. there were numerous times that we ended up in the emergency room for fear that she was going to die. reporter: bosley says he would regularly return home from work with carol ann unconscious and barely breathing. you took pictures of your wife essentially unconscious. correct. reporter: must have been a hard thing to do. very hard. reporter: bosley tried to show the photos to dr. webster and other staff members and he tried calling the clinic to vent his concerns. he was shut down with staff citing patient privacy or hipa. you weren t so much as asking for information as you wanted to provide it. i said i m not asking for information. and i was given the hipa excuse and that was the end of it. reporter: so what does dr. webster have to say about the claims against him and his clinic? despite our best efforts, not much. he did, however, respond to lawsuits filed against him and
suicide? and he said, well, i called dr. webster he told me that she committed suicide. reporter: why do you have to call dr. webster for a diagnosis? reporter: the utah medical examiner s office said webster didn t have any influence over her stated cause of death, which makes what happened next even more puzzling. maybe five weeks later, i get a revised autopsy report. cause of death, undetermined. reporter: when it came back undetermined, was there an explanation? they just changed it. it has been four years since she died, her husband still wonders why his pleas for help to the staff at life tree and especially lind webster fell on deaf ears. you blame dr. webster for your wife s death? i do. to this day i regret that i did not go down there and find him.