Pharmaceutical malpractice occurs when pharmacists fill out a wrong prescription, give the wrong doses, or administer drugs that cause health issues in patients that ingest them.
Basically, pharmaceutical malpractice results from a pharmaceutical professional’s negligence towards a consumer or patient.
According to the United States Food and Drug Administration, pharmaceutical negligence is any preventable medical errors that causes or leads to health issues due to the improper allocation of drugs by a healthcare professional.
Prevalent forms of pharmaceutical malpractice
Failure to advise a patient on the effect of long-term usage of a drug – primary healthcare providers are responsible for counseling their patients on the long-term effect of being too long on prescription medication. Any negative risk or complication resulting from the negligence of informing the patients is equivalent to pharmaceutical malpractice/negligence.
Failure to fill out a patient’s prescription correctly – this is the most common form of pharmaceutical negligence and occurs when a pharmacist mistakenly interprets the doctor’s instruction as something else and prescribes drugs that cause the ailment to continue or get worse.
Prescribing the wrong drug or dose due to clumsily reading a patient’s medical record – this occurs when the medical practitioner involved with the patient fails to go through a patient’s medical records, hence he/she prescribes medications that put the patient’s life at risk.
Giving patient defective drugs – this is the top cause of pharmaceutical malpractice in the United States. This results from failure to recall inadequately tested drugs, a type of design defect, or contaminated drugs that are dangerous when ingested by the patient.
Statute of Limitation to Filing a Pharmaceutical Lawsuit
The time limit to file against a pharmaceutical malpractice lawsuit is between 3 to 6 years, depending on the state you live in and the complications caused by the medication.
However, the statute of limitations in most states is two to three years at maximum. If your accident is not acknowledged or noticed until after the said time, the claim is referred to as time-barred.
How much can I get for a pharmaceutical claim?
It often depends on the injuries and complications suffered from pharmaceutical malpractice. Some patients require the parties involved to acknowledge their wrongs and put preventive measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
If you or a loved one suffer from pharmaceutical malpractice or negligence, speak to an experienced medical malpractice lawyer. Call or contact us online today.
