Bordentown physician charged with narcotics distribution & fraud

CINNAMINSON, NJ — A former New Jersey physician has been charged with prescribing over 1 million doses of highly addictive opioid pills out of his practice, prosecutors announced on Wednesday.

One of 60-year-old Morris "Moishe" Starkman's patients overdosed in 2015, two months after seeing Starkman for the last time, authorities said.

In fact, during one visit in December 2014, Starkman continued to prescribe Oxycontin to the patient, even though he was slurring his speech and falling asleep during the visit, according to the complaint.

The former Bordentown doctor also engaged in an unlawful medical billing scheme, Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina announced.

Starkman was arrested on Nov. 22 following the execution of a search warrant at his Yellowstone Road home. During the search, detectives said they seized multiple electronic devices, along with business, financial and medical records.

Between Jan. 1, 2015, and Jan. 1, 2018, Starkman prescribed nearly 1.4 million doses of highly addictive opioids, including Oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet, Roxicodone, Endocet), Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco, Lorcet, Lortab), Oxymorphone (Opana), Hydromorphone (Dilaudid), morphine and fentanyl, according to authorities.

A total of eight patients claimed Starkman gave them 11 doses of opioids each day during that period. One person claims they were prescribed 17,460 doses, which equates to more than 15 per day, according to authorities.

Each one was prescribed anywhere from four to 10 times the maximum dose recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, authorities said.

The patient who fatally overdosed, identified in a complaint against Starkman as "H.H." was 19 the first time he visited Starkman with complaints of back pain in July 2012, according to the complaint.

At that time, "H.H." listed an array of medications he was currently taking, including a muscle relaxer; an anti-anxiety drug; a drug to treat attention deficit disorder, a drug to treat insomnia, and "recently finished pain medication from wisdom teeth removal."

Starkman prescribed a muscle relaxer that day without conducting a physical exam or diagnostic to discover what caused the pain, according to the complaint. The following month, he began prescribing opioids to "H.H."

Over the next three years, Starkman prescribed Xanax and up to 240 opioid pain pills a month to "H.H." However, he never established and re-evaluated treatment plans, nor did he reassess the use and dosage of the narcotics prescribed, as required by law, according to the complaint.

In January 2015, when H.H. visited the office because he was "sick" and "ran out of all meds early again," Starkman wrote him a prescription for a higher dosage of Oxycodone.

At one point, "H.H." spent a week in a mental health and addiction treatment facility in Vermont for anxiety and panic attacks. Three days after he was released, he visited Starkman, and was prescribed 120 pills of Oxycodone. Starkman made note of the time "H.H." spent in the Vermont facility during the March 16, 2015 appointment, according to the complaint.

However, because of insufficient evidence connecting his prescriptions to the patient's fatal overdose, Starkman was not criminally charged in connection with the patient's death.

At most, Starkman performed cursory examinations on patients before prescribing large amounts of opioids without medical justification, consideration of whether his patients were benefiting from the prescription painkillers he routinely and repeatedly prescribed, or exploration of the underlying causes for their pain, authorities said.

He also failed to properly document treatment plans for pain management or opioid use, or provide a legitimate medical purpose for prescribing such high quantities for an extended period of time, authorities said.

Because each patient was taking a high number of opioids, they were assured of returning to him for refills, and he could charge them for each office visit, authorities said.

He also submitted fake health care claims to insurance companies for more than $50,000 for unauthorized services that were not eligible for reimbursement and were either not performed as represented or not performed at all.

"He was one of the top prescribers in New Jersey," Coffina said. "The number of opioids he prescribed for the three-year period reviewed during the investigation was enough to provide in excess of three doses to every man, woman and child residing in Burlington County.

"It is well documented that prescription opioids lay at the origin of the devastating drug use epidemic we are experiencing today. Around 80% of heroin users started with prescription drugs. Physicians who have abandoned their medical judgment and indiscriminately prescribed opioids to patients they knew or should have known were becoming addicted to them must be held accountable for their role in this ongoing health crisis."

The investigation into Starkman began in 2016 when an insurance company contacted law enforcement to inform them of the high volume of opioid prescriptions he was writing, authorities said.

The State Board of Medical Examiners temporarily suspended Starkman's license in August 2017. Under a consent order reached in April 2018, Starkman agreed to permanently surrender his license to practice medicine in New Jersey.

He has been charged with eight counts of second-degree distribution of a controlled dangerous substance, four counts of second-degree healthcare claims fraud and two counts of second-degree insurance fraud.

Starkman was released following a first appearance in Superior Court. The case is being prepared for presentation to a grand jury for possible indictment.

A South Jersey doctor illegally prescribed more than a million opioid doses, authorities say

The charges against Starkman, who surrendered his medical license in April 2018 after having been suspended in 2017, outlined eight patients who received 11 doses of opioids per day on average during that three-year period.

“One patient alone was prescribed 17,460 doses, which equates to more than 15 per day,” the prosecutor’s office said in a news release. “They each received anywhere from four to 10 times the maximum dose recommended by the Centers for Disease Control.”

Between January 2015 and January 2018, Starkman prescribed about 1.4 million total doses of opioids, which included drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and fentanyl, to patients at his Bordentown Family Practice, according to prosecutors.

“He was one of the top prescribers in New Jersey,” said Scott Coffina, Burlington County prosecutor. “The number of opioids he prescribed for the three-year period reviewed during the investigation was enough to provide in excess of three doses to every man, woman, and child residing in Burlington County."

Starkman performed “cursory examinations on patients before prescribing large amounts of opioids without medical justification,” police said, and “maintained inadequate records on his patients, which failed to document treatment plans for pain management or opioid use.”

The investigation, which was prompted by a tip from an insurance company, also revealed that Starkman submitted more than $50,000 in fraudulent health-care claims to insurance companies.

Starkman was released following his first appearance in Superior Court.