DOCTOR TOLD TO PAY AFTER BREAKING AGREEMENT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 21, 1993                   TAG: 9301210300
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
DOCTOR TOLD TO PAY AFTER BREAKING AGREEMENT
A Luray physician convicted of breaking his agreement to donate two years of medical service in exchange for a federal scholarship was ordered this week to pay penalties and interest of $270,387.75.
The judgment against Mark Prager "represents another episode in the continued aggressive pursuit of "deadbeat doctors" who want to take federal scholarship money without providing their badly needed services to the poor and disadvantaged" served by the Department of Health and Human Services, said U.S. Attorney Montgomery Tucker.
Prager was given $31,252 in 1979 and 1880 to use toward his medical school tuition. In exchange, he agreed to serve for two years at a site chosen by the National Health Services Corp.
But shortly after completing medical school, he quit a three-year residency program and moved to Georgia, where he set up a practice.
When NHSC officials tracked him down, he sent a letter saying he would not agree to serve in some "NHSC OR IHS [Indian Health Service] hellhole." He moved to Luray in March 1990 and set up practice there.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB