Practice area
Medication errors
Medication errors can happen when a drug is prescribed, filled, given or monitored. Most are caught before they cause harm. When one is not, and a careful professional would have caught it, the person or hospital responsible may be accountable.
What this can look like
- The wrong drug, or the wrong dose, prescribed
- A dangerous interaction or a known allergy missed
- A pharmacy that filled the wrong medicine or strength
- An IV medication given at the wrong rate
- Blood thinners, insulin or opioids not monitored
- A medicine stopped or not restarted after a hospital stay
Where medication errors happen
Each step has its own professional, its own safety checks and its own records. Finding the step where the error happened tells us who was responsible.
-
Prescribing
The doctor or nurse practitioner chooses the drug and dose, and checks allergies and other medicines.
-
Dispensing
The pharmacy fills it, checks the dose and interactions, and labels it correctly.
-
Giving
In a hospital, nurses give the right drug to the right patient, at the right dose, rate and time.
-
Monitoring
Someone watches for side effects and checks levels for drugs that need it.
What the law asks you to show
All four must be true. Most cases are decided by the third one.
- 1.Duty
- The prescriber, pharmacy, nurse or hospital was responsible for that step of your medication.
- 2.Breach
- A pharmacist or physician expert would say a careful professional would have caught or prevented the error.
- 3.Causation
- The error, rather than your underlying illness, caused the harm.
- 4.Harm
- A hospital stay, organ damage, a lasting injury or a death.
Who reviews it
Independent experts who do not work with the providers involved. We pay their fees.
- A clinical pharmacist expert
- A physician in the prescribing specialty
- A nursing expert when the error happened in a hospital
Records that help
You do not need these before you call. With your permission, we request them.
- Prescriptions and pharmacy records
- The bottle or package itself. Please keep it.
- The hospital's medication administration record
- Lab results showing drug levels
- Discharge medication lists
Deadlines can be short
Pharmacy claims can have different rules from claims against doctors or hospitals in some states. Keep the packaging and call early. Rules differ by state.
Deadlines, explainedQuestions we hear
Is the pharmacy responsible, or the doctor?
Sometimes both. A prescribing error can pass a pharmacy check that should have caught it. The records from each step show who had the chance to stop it.
I threw the bottle away. Is that a problem?
It helps to have it, but pharmacy records usually show what was dispensed. Tell us what you remember and we will request the rest.
Other practice areas
Tell us what happened. We will tell you the truth about it.
A free, confidential review by our nurse and an independent physician. If we do not believe it was malpractice, we will say so and explain why.