Summary: The Starkman Case

A Bordentown family physician’s license was temporarily suspended for prescribing up to 720 opioid pain pills a month without any physical exams or documentation of a legitimate need for the drugs, according to the Division of Consumer Affairs. The physician, Dr. Moishe Starkman, allegedly prescribed large amounts of Fentanyl, Oxycodone, and similar drugs to five patients over the course of five years. From 2012 to 2017, he wrote them prescriptions without legitimate reasons until he agreed to a suspension of his license until a hearing on the allegations with the state Board of Medical Examiners, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s press release. “We allege that instead of providing legitimate medical care to his patients, Dr. Starkman simply wrote them prescription after prescription for highly addictive drugs without so much as taking their temperature,” Attorney General Porrino said. According to the State, Starkman did not

in the Complaint, died from a drug overdose two months after his last visit with Starkman at the age of 22. H.H. came to him when he was 19 with “lower back pain,” and a list of drugs he was taking for other things like insomnia, attention deficit disorder and anxiety. He also recently finished taking medication for getting his wisdom teeth removed. According to the Complaint, Starkman prescribed a muscle relaxer that day without a physical examination or diagnostic testing and began prescribing opioids the month after. Starkman gave H.H. prescriptions for Xanax and up 240 opioid pills a month for the next three years without any reevaluations or reassessments of use and dosage that are required by law, the State alleges. On the final visit, the Complaint says, he was given 120 pills of Oxycodone, even though had been discharged from a mental health and addiction treatment facility three days before. He had spent a week as an inpatient for anxiety and panic