Are Prescription Errors Medical Malpractice?

Prescribing the wrong medication or overdosing a patient can leave them with various adverse health issues that are costly to treat/manage.

Prescription errors are one of the most common clinical malpractices that occur in hospital settings every day. In fact, this error changes the lives of over 1.5 million people every year, leaving medical practitioners with lawsuits. Unfortunately, some prescription errors are not considered medical malpractice. In this article, we’ll show you specific situations when these cases can be considered medical malpractices.

What Are Prescription Errors?

A prescription error or wrong prescription is a type of clinical negligence, since it’s a preventable occurrence. It can occur at every level of the medical prescription process. This includes the following:

• The Dispensing error is caused by a pharmacist when giving the medications.
• Distributing error occurs when giving the drugs to the patient. 
• Prescribing errors are caused by doctors who give wrong instructions or prescribe incorrect drugs.

Healthcare providers who monitor the patient while they’re using the drugs at the hospital can cause monitoring errors. They can overdose the patient or administer the wrong medication.   

Are All Wrong Prescription Cases Medical Malpractices?

For your situation to be considered a malpractice, you must have been harmed by the healthcare professional’s negligence. The error must have left you with a new illness/injury or organ failure. Several errors can result in medical malpractices, including the following:

• A doctor prescribing the wrong medication that isn’t recommended to individuals with heart issues results in a heart attack. 
• Pharmacists giving you the wrong medications after misreading your doctor’s instructions, resulting in allergic reactions. 
• Nurses overdosing the patients resulting in severe side effects. 
• Anesthesiologists using an anesthetic that you said you were allergic to, resulting in your body reacting to it while you’re undergoing your surgery. 
• Medical practitioners failing to consider your other medications for pre-existing conditions when prescribing a drug that interacts with them leaving you with severe side effects.

If the healthcare provider neglects crucial information about your existing condition and medication, then you can consult Sadaka Law firm and file your wrong prescription lawsuit.

When Are Prescription Errors Not Considered to be Medical Malpractices?

Unfortunately, not every medication error is a clinical malpractice. For example, a doctor can prescribe the right medication, but you experience an unknown or less common adverse effect. The healthcare provider may not have anticipated that reaction if the drugs were common and safe. Plus, they considered your medical history before prescribing the medication and gave you the right dosage and instructions.

In this scenario, you may have suffered, but the healthcare professional didn’t deviate from the standard of care. The adverse effect was an unforeseen occurrence that could not have been avoided, as the doctor followed the right protocol.

Endnote

Prescribing the wrong medication or overdosing a patient can leave them with various adverse health issues that are costly to treat/manage. Prescription errors can cause prolonged hospital stays, increased outpatient visitations, and high illness management costs. It can also cause drug-drug interactions, which can be quite dangerous as they can increase your mortality risk. If you disclose your medical history to the doctor and still suffered due to their negligence, then you should file your prescription error lawsuit.