Elkhart, IN nurse charged with prescription drug fraud

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An Elkhart nurse is accused of palming prescription painkillers and mishandling paperwork at a retirement community last year.

R. Hoffman, 51, faces 12 criminal charges: Four counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, four counts of failing to keep records, and four counts of furnishing fraudulent information.

Hoffman allegedly stole doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone prescribed to four residents up to 31 times while working as a nurse at Waterford Crossing in Goshen from February through March 2018, according to a probable cause affidavit by an Indiana Attorney General’s Office investigator.

A pharmacy audit revealed the alleged fraud by finding discrepancies in mandated record-keeping procedures for dispensing prescriptions at Waterford. Hoffman signed out extra doses of the medications through a substance record, but the pills weren’t documented in the patients’ medical records, the affidavit alleges.

The investigator specified that of 18 pills signed out for one resident, seven were undocumented. Half of the 20 hydrocodone pills signed out for a second resident also weren’t documented. A third resident had nine undocumented doses out of 24 that were signed out. The fourth resident had 18 doses signed out with six of them missing. Hoffman had signed the medication out three times per shift over a three-week period despite the prescription’s order to provide the drug twice a day, the investigator noted in the affidavit.

Following up on the audit, a supervisor checked on a painkiller dose Hoffman had signed out and documented providing it to a resident on March 27, 2018. The supervisor spoke to the resident, and the resident said the medication wasn’t requested or received. Hoffman was then fired, the affidavit shows.

Hoffman was charged with the 12 counts, all Level 6 felonies, June 18 in Elkhart County Superior Court 6 following the investigation, court information shows.

She was arrested on a warrant and jailed over the weekend, according to jail information.