SPRINGFIELD – The former chief of the acute pain clinic at Baystate Medical Center Hospital was sentenced on Thursday in federal court to six months in jail plus three years supervised release after he pleaded guilty to health care fraud.

Scott S. Reuben, 51, of East Longmeadow, was ordered to repay $361,932 in restitution, forfeit $50,000 and pay a $5,000 fine. The sentence was announced Thursday as a result of Ruben’s entering a guilty plea on Feb. 22 to one count of health care fraud.

He was charged with submitting bogus research in a 2007 pain management study of patients who had knee surgery. The test was conducted for Pfizer under a $73,000 research grant, and was supposed to measure the effectiveness of the drug Celebrex for reducing post-operative pain.

Fifty patients were supposed to receive the drug and 50 other a placebo, but it was discovered the test was never conducted, even though Reuben published studies that suggested otherwise.

The scam was uncovered during a routine audit by Baystate in 2008, and the hospital later found that Reuben misrepresented findings in 21 studies dating back to 1996.

Baystate terminated his privileges with the hospital in 2009.