BALTIMORE — A Reisterstown doctor got $66,000 from a drug company to prescribe opioids. Now, he's set to serve eight months in federal prison.
Howard Hoffberg, 65, ran the troubled Rosen-Hoffberg Rehabilitation and Pain Management clinic in Towson and Owings Mills, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The clinic was raided by federal agents in 2018, and a physician assistant pleaded guilty to illegal drug distribution charges.
Hoffberg admitted to asking Insys Therapeutics, Inc., to pay him to overprescribe a potent opioid called Subsys, which was only supposed to be prescribed to a limited number of cancer patients.
Hoffberg prescribed the drug - which contains fentanyl - to patients who did not have cancer, and ultimately got $66,000 from Insys for doing so. He admitted to switching some patients from another fentanyl-based drug over to Subsys, even though the drugs were not interchangeable.
He was sentenced today after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate anti-kickback statutes, and will serve eight months in federal prison followed by a year of supervised release.
