Hauppauge Doctor Convicted For Illegally Selling Prescriptions For Opioids: AG

A Hauppauge doctor was convicted on Friday for illegally selling prescriptions for opioid medications and for helping one of his non-physician employees issue prescriptions for controlled substances, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

According to the AG, Kurt Silverstein, a doctor of osteopathic medicine who practiced in Hauppauge from January 2009 through July 15, 2009, continually excused himself from his office, often to play ice hockey.

While he was gone, he had his receptionist print and sign his name to prescriptions for controlled substances, create electronic medical records of prescription-buying “patients” and give the prescriptions to these patients after they paid a cash “office visit” fee of up to $120, the attorney general said.

The electronic medical record would then falsely record a physical exam with notations to continue the course of “treatment” from the last visit, as if Silverstein had actually seen a real patient during an office visit, the attorney general said.

Later, in July 2011, before flying to Arizona on a trip he had booked months earlier, Silverstein left signed blank prescriptions for the receptionist to fill in when patients arrived for renewals of their prescriptions for controlled substances, according to the attorney general.

He then falsified their electronic medical records to say, in one instance, that he was out of the office on an emergency and had left the patient’s prescription in a sealed envelope. In another case, he documented his supposed conversation with the patient.

The indictment charged that the medications included the controlled substances Xanax, Norco (hydrocondone with acetaminophen), suboxone, Adderall and clonazepam.

Silverstein is due back in court on March 28 for sentencing. If convicted of the top charge, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

“The crimes committed by this doctor are unacceptable, showing no regard for the health or wellbeing of his patients – essentially serving as a drug dealer in a white coat," Schneiderman said. "Those who fuel the opioid epidemic will be held responsible and punished to the full extent of the law."