Is Your Doctor Giving You The Right Prescription For Your Condition?
Doctors, practicing nurses, therapist and pharmacists are authorized to protect our health, but as they’re human too, even they make mistakes. Evidently, when a medical professional make a mistake, the consequences to the patient can be deadly. While mistakes surrounding misdiagnoses, surgery, and administering of anesthesia are well-documented, prescription and medication errors are a rising concern. According to the experts at the Abelson Law Firm, every year in the United States, at least 1.5 million people are injured as a result of medication errors.
How Does It Happen?
Errors in medication are often made by the prescribing doctor. He may fail to identify potential interactions …show more content…
Obviously, doctors and pharmacists don’t willfully prescribe and dispense incorrect medications. But, they are often overworked, pharmacy technicians aren’t always properly trained and monitored, and in a rush to fill so many orders, pharmacists sometimes fill a prescription without seeking clarity from the prescribing doctor. So, if you’ve been given the wrong prescription, what should you do?
What Should You …show more content…
Save any paperwork you received with the medication and return it, along with the prescription, to the pharmacy where you will exchange it for the correct medication.
If you were given the wrong medication; but do not discover it until after you’ve already started taking it, discontinue use and contact your doctor and the pharmacy immediately. Your doctor will need to know what it is that you were given so he can advise you of any potential side effects. In cases where the bottle label is correct, but the pills are not, the pharmacist will be able to identify the medication.
If you are experiencing unexplained side effects, it could be an allergic reaction, the pharmacist may have given you the wrong medication or dosage, or the new medication may be interacting with an existing prescription. Stop using it immediately and contact your doctor.
When a patient is either prescribed or given the wrong medication, the results can be debilitating, or even deadly. You should be able to entrust your doctor and your pharmacist with your health, but given that nearly 3.9 million prescriptions were filled in the United States in 2013, the odds are that mistakes will happen. So, it is prudent to ask
Doctors, practicing nurses, therapist and pharmacists are authorized to protect our health, but as they’re human too, even they make mistakes. Evidently, when a medical professional make a mistake, the consequences to the patient can be deadly. While mistakes surrounding misdiagnoses, surgery, and administering of anesthesia are well-documented, prescription and medication errors are a rising concern. According to the experts at the Abelson Law Firm, every year in the United States, at least 1.5 million people are injured as a result of medication errors.
How Does It Happen?
Errors in medication are often made by the prescribing doctor. He may fail to identify potential interactions …show more content…
Obviously, doctors and pharmacists don’t willfully prescribe and dispense incorrect medications. But, they are often overworked, pharmacy technicians aren’t always properly trained and monitored, and in a rush to fill so many orders, pharmacists sometimes fill a prescription without seeking clarity from the prescribing doctor. So, if you’ve been given the wrong prescription, what should you do?
What Should You …show more content…
Save any paperwork you received with the medication and return it, along with the prescription, to the pharmacy where you will exchange it for the correct medication.
If you were given the wrong medication; but do not discover it until after you’ve already started taking it, discontinue use and contact your doctor and the pharmacy immediately. Your doctor will need to know what it is that you were given so he can advise you of any potential side effects. In cases where the bottle label is correct, but the pills are not, the pharmacist will be able to identify the medication.
If you are experiencing unexplained side effects, it could be an allergic reaction, the pharmacist may have given you the wrong medication or dosage, or the new medication may be interacting with an existing prescription. Stop using it immediately and contact your doctor.
When a patient is either prescribed or given the wrong medication, the results can be debilitating, or even deadly. You should be able to entrust your doctor and your pharmacist with your health, but given that nearly 3.9 million prescriptions were filled in the United States in 2013, the odds are that mistakes will happen. So, it is prudent to ask