Articles Tagged with pharmacy

More than 1.5 million people are injured each year in the U.S. due to medication errors, and about 7,000 are killed. When doctors or pharmacists makes a mistake with prescription medications, the consequences can be fatal.

Claims for prescription errors are often based on simple negligence, but can be attributed to professional malpractice. The following are the most common mistakes made by both doctors and pharmacies:

  • Failure to notify patient of possible side effects.

When a loved one is in need of medical care, it is important to research all the options and choose a provider you feel comfortable with. Unfortunately, mistakes can happen, even with a carefully chosen healthcare provider.

Medical malpractice occurs when a provider, usually a doctor or hospital, fails to administer treatment that meets the customary standard of health care. Through medical negligence or misdiagnosis, malpractice may result in injury or wrongful death of a patient. In a medical malpractice case, the doctor, hospital, health facility, or government agency in charge of health care center may all be held accountable.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs paid $91.7 million in malpractice claims, making this the largest judgment against a government agency in 12 years. Gross negligence, missed diagnoses, delayed treatment, and procedures performed on the wrong body parts were cited as the major medical mistakes of the government agency.

According to the CBS Evening News, GlaxoSmithKline- a British pharmaceutical company- has been ordered to pay $3 billion in a settlement after an investigation of its sales and marketing practices.

The Washington Post stated that the investigation spanned seven years, with analysis of marketing practices for 10 well-known GlaxoSmithKline drugs. The investigation also questioned possible Medicaid reimbursement fraud.

“The settlement [is] the largest yet in a wave of federal cases against pharmaceutical companies accused of illegal marketing, surpassing the previous record of $2.3 billion paid by Pfizer in 2009,” as reported by New York Times.