Toms River Doctor, Physician Assistant Among 31 Punished In 2016 Over Painkillers: AG

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A Toms River doctor is among 31 in New Jersey who have been punished by the state for overprescribing painkillers and other narcotics that can lead to addiction, Attorney General Christopher Porrino and the Division of Consumer Affairs announced this week.

James Morales of Toms River has had his license suspended temporarily pending the disposition of criminal charges, according to state officials. Ronald Scott, a physician assistant, has had his license permanently revoked, state officials said.

Morales, an orthopedic doctor who owned Shore Sports Medicine, 1868 Hooper Ave., pleaded guilty in June 2015 to accepting more than $60,000 in bribes to refer pain cream prescriptions to a Lakewood pharmacy and that he falsified health records to ensure they would be paid for by insurance companies, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

That guilty plea came three weeks after Morales was arrested and charged in along with three others in what authorities say was an illegal patient referral scheme that allowed them to commit health insurance fraud and maximize the payouts they received. Those charges remain pending.

Scott was arrested in 2014 and indicted in 2015 on charges he participated in a scheme that forged prescriptions for painkillers in the name of a licensed doctor without that doctor's consent, selling the prescriptions at $300 to $400 apiece.

Porrino said the number of doctors and physician's assistants whose practicing authority revoked, suspended or otherwise restricted as part of the effort to crack down on problem prescribers was unprecedented but is a critical part of combatting the ongoing heroin and opioid addiction crisis plaguing New Jersey and the nation.

“When four out of five new heroin users are getting their start by abusing prescription drugs, you have to attack the problem at ground zero — in irresponsibly run doctors’ offices,” Porrino said in a statement.

The discipline measures sought by Porrino were carried out by the State Board of Medical Examiners within the Division of Consumer Affairs.

The 2016 actions filed with the board resulted in eight license revocations, five long-term suspensions and one voluntary retirement that settled allegations against 14 doctors. Temporary license suspensions and other cessations of practice and/or prescribing privileges were obtained for another 17 doctors, pending the outcome of allegations against them.

The effort to curb the prescription drug abuse that is feeding the heroin epidemic has included other restrictions on doctors throughout the state, including the newly signed law limiting initial prescriptions of opioid painkillers to treat acute pain to a five-day supply. The Centers for Disease Control issued guidelines last year urging physicians to reduce their initial opioid painkiller prescriptions to seven days, saying it will lower the risk of patients becoming addicted and reduce the chances of unused drugs falling into the hands of those who might abuse them, or sell them for abuse.

The state also has expanded the Prescription Monitoring Program, which is a searchable data-tracking system that keeps records of prescriptions filled in New Jersey for CDS, Porrino's office said. The information can be used by prescribers to spot patterns of prescription drug diversion or misuse by their patients, including “doctor shopping” to obtain CDS from multiple providers. The database now shares information with New York, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Minnesota.

Toms River residents who have unused and unneeded prescription pills they need to get rid of can take them to the Toms River Police Department's Project Medicine Drop box, which is anonymous and accessible 24 hours a day year-round in the lobby of the police department on Oak Avenue.

The Ocean County prosecutor's office on Thursday announced that the Project Medicine Drop efforts in the county resulted in 3,280 pounds of prescription drugs incinerated on Wednesday, reflecting collections from October 2016 to February. The prosecutor's office said those collections have resulted in the destruction of 22,380 pounds — more than 11 tons — of pills being destroyed since early 2014.

The entire list of doctors who have been punished can be found here.

Spilled pills, by Ano Lobb, via Flickr under Creative Commons license