D.A.: Doctor overprescribed opioid pills
A doctor who practices in Berks County has been charged with recklessly prescribing pain pills, enabling his employees to illegally obtain them for street sales that helped fuel the opioid epidemic.
The charges against Dr. Robert W. Schorschinsky, 61, culminated a two-year investigation into his practice, Penn Family Medicine in Exeter Township. The practice operated as a “pill mill,” District Attorney John T. Adams said in announcing the charges at a press conference Thursday.
“I am certain many patients went to him by word of mouth because they heard, ‘This is where you get opioid meds,’ “Adams said.
The investigation began in late 2017 when county probation officers found a pre-signed prescription pad when conducting a home visit and notified Reading police.
That raised a “big red flag,” so city police forwarded the information to the county detectives, who with the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office launched a broader investigation.
The evidence trail led to three people — two of Schorschinsky’s office staff, Heather Bailey, 35, of Bethel Township and Stacey Delvalle, 30, of Robesonia, as well as Delvalle’s husband, Jorge Soler Jr., 39 — being charged with fraudulently obtaining and distributing the prescription pills, Adams said.
The alleged co-conspirators are free on bail awaiting final disposition of their cases, according to court records.
According to the criminal complaint, the two employees and Soler would forge prescriptions using their own or fictitious names on the prescription forms Schorschinsky had pre-signed. They would take the fraudulent prescriptions to county pharmacies to have them filled.
Soler also became one of Schorschinsky’s patients, and obtained medically unnecessary Oxycodine that he and the rest of the group sold for profit.
During this time, Schorschinsky would have been able to see — by checking the Pennsylvania Prescription Monitoring Program as required by law — that Soler “had opioid prescriptions prior to his initial visit that were issued by Penn Family Medicine (the prescriptions he would have received via the pre-signed forms), thus alerting him to the diversion of the medication.”
As the investigation continued, evidence pointed to the involvement of Schorschinsky, the only full-time doctor at Penn Family Medicine, in the scheme, Adams said.
Adams said Schorschinsky
“This practice was a pill mill in our community, and I am pleased today that we have taken the steps to stop this flood of opioid medication into our community and also to put a stop to these controlled substances, which lead many times to addiction to heroin.”
— Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams
would pre-sign prescriptions when he would go on vacation and other physicians would see his patients. The use of paper prescriptions is a relatively rare practice nowadays, and lawmakers have discouraged their use due to the potential for fraud, the DA said.
On May 23, 2018, investigators obtained patient records from Penn Family Medicine pertaining to overprescribing opioid pills. An expert in physician treatment and prescribing practices then analyzed Schorschinsky’s diagnoses and prescribed treatments.
In each case reviewed, the expert found Schorschinsky was prescribing opioids outside of accepted treatment principles and prescribing practices. In some cases, potentially
Stopping the flood
Schorschinsky, a Schuylkill County resident, surrendered to detectives Thursday morning and is awaiting arraignment on 20 counts of prescribing controlled substances outside accepted treatment principles and three counts of obtaining controlled substances by fraud or subterfuge. He remained free to await a hearing after video arraignment before District Judge Dean R. Patton.
The Pennsylvania Legislature, in response to the worsening opioid epidemic, passed the state’s first prescription drug monitoring program, which took effect in January 2017. The doctor chose to ignore the guidelines, Adams said, and thus operated a “reckless practice.”
“This practice was a pill mill in our community,” Adams said, “and I am pleased today that we have taken the steps to stop this flood of opioid medication into our community and also to put a stop to these controlled substances, which lead many times to addiction to heroin.”
The Berks detectives and the state attorney general’s office are working with the Pennsylvania Department of State to determine Schorschinsky’s license status, Adams said.
Any former or present patient of the practice should immediately consult another physician regarding the treatment administered by Penn Family Medicine, he added. Adams encouraged present or past patients with information to help the ongoing investigation by contacting county detectives at 610478-7171.
Penn Family Medicine officials were unavailable Thursday for comment.
Schorschinsky’s profile on the Reading Hospital/ Tower Health website indicated he is board certified in osteopathic medicine. Hospital officials were unavailable for comment as of Thursday evening.
The charges underscore a local and national opioid epidemic.
From 2006 through 2012, pharmacies in Berks County distributed more than 63 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone — enough to give each person in the county about 20 opioid pills per year over that period.
According to statistics from the CDC, the population in Berks County rose 2.9% from 2006 to 2012. But the rate of drug-related deaths went up 66.2%, from 7.7 per 100,000 people in 2006 to 12.8 in 2012.
Meanwhile, the number of pills distributed to county pharmacies more than doubled.
At Thursday’s press conference, Adams praised the cooperation of pharmacies, which increasingly are tipping off investigators to “red flags” that indicate a medical practice may be overprescribing certain medications. One pharmacy in particular provided crucial help in the Penn Family Medicine investigation, he said.
‘An anomaly’?
Adams said he believes authorities have shut the last of the so-called pill mills that operated in Berks.
“I do believe that this doctor’s practice was an anomaly,” he said. “I think most physicians have really changed their prescribing habits, and I for one have spoken to many doctors and have myself seen the changes in the medical profession, and they are much stricter about the prescribing of opioids than years before.”
State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, in a statement, said, “The opioid, heroin, and fentanyl epidemic is devastating Pennsylvania communities and taking 12 Pennsylvanian lives per day. We know that a root cause of addiction is overprescribing— 4 out of every 5 heroin users start with prescription drugs.
“Despite knowing full well the severity of this crisis and despite his responsibility to protect the health and well-being of his patients, the defendant is charged with overprescribing opioids and aiding a massive diversion scheme.
“I’m proud to work with our law enforcement partners in Berks County to put an end to these dangerous practices and hold accountable anyone who threatens the lives of Pennsylvanians with reckless prescribing practices.”