Prescription Malpractice and the Law

A patient places trust in doctors, pharmacists and manufacturers when he or she uses a pharmaceutical or medical device. But the widespread incidence of prescription malpractice shows we aren’t always getting the best medicine – and that legal action may be necessary in order to obtain compensation for injuries.

It’s unfortunate that a medical malpractice attorney would need to get involved in your prescription medications. But malpractice with pharmaceuticals and medical devices – by medical doctors, pharmacists, administrators, nursing staff and manufacturers – can cause serious injury and death. Further, manufacturers of drugs have had massive recalls in recent years due to adverse effects being discovered after widespread patient use and injury.

At least 400,000 patients are harmed by prescription malpractice every year in the U.S., some of them fatally.

A significant degree of healthcare is delivered through medical prescriptions, causing pharmaceutical malpractice to be far too common. Here are some of the ways in which prescription malpractice frequently occurs:

Physicians prescribe medications that injuriously interact with other medications the patient is already taking.
The doctor’s instructions to the pharmacist were misread or misinterpreted, leading to the wrong medication being prescribed or an incorrect dosage.
A nurse administers medications incorrectly or according to flawed instructions in in-patient settings.
A mistake in manufacturing resulted in a defective product.
Side effects are not disclosed by the pharmaceutical company.
The drug manufacturer was given approval to market the drug but adequate testing was not conducted or findings were misrepresented.

Important to note, however, is the fact that not all unfavorable medical outcomes are due to errors in pharmaceuticals or other interventions (therapy, medical devices, etc.). A prescription malpractice attorney (a medical malpractice attorney who specializes in prescription malpractice) must prove the following:

Did the patient’s condition deteriorate following treatment?
Do new symptoms correlate with known effects of the medication in question?
Can the physician provide a plausible alternative explanation for the patient’s worsened health?

Who is responsible in prescription malpractice cases?

In several widely reported cases (Fen-Phen, Rezulin, Baycol and others) in recent years, drug manufacturers have been shown to hide key facts about a medication’s side effects or exaggerated its efficacy. Economic pressures to bring medications to market and expand their use are believed to be responsible for this spate of medication malpractice injuries.

But even with prescription drugs that are proven effective and safe under proper conditions, several participants in healthcare delivery can still be negligent or reckless in the administration of medicine and medical devices:

Prescribing physicians
Pharmacists
Hospital and nursing home administrators
Therapists
Nurses

As with any form of medical malpractice, it is important for patients and their families who intend to file claims to collect all medical records and to establish a written record of conversations they had with medical professionals. Share this with your prescription malpractice attorney as you consider your options for seeking fair and just compensation.

R. Klettke is a freelance writer. He writes about personal injury and medical malpractice law and other matters of jurisprudence.

Important Advisory: This article is not intended to provide legal advice upon which you or anyone else should rely in making any decisions regarding the instituting or prosecuting of a legal claim. Laws and rules relating to the bringing of a claim vary widely from state to state. You should always contact a personal injury attorney to obtain information as to the rules and the laws pertaining to any claim you might have.

Medical Malpractice and Patient Confidentiality

Breaking a patient – physician confidentiality is one type of medical malpractice and can be grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit filed by a personal injury attorney who specializes in medical malpractice cases, otherwise known as a “medical malpractice attorney”.

Those seeking medical care or advice implicitly trust that their personal information will be kept safe from disclosure to unauthorized parties. Every patient has a right to feel safe in that trust, and can suffer in several ways if the confidentiality is broken.

Protection of patient confidentiality involves more than one might initially imagine. For example:

All contents of the patient’s record should be considered confidential and therefore “protected”. This includes information the patient has provided (such as health history forms), the providers’ examination notes, telephone messages, notes or letters written to the doctor, labs, prescriptions, and diagnostic tests.
Doctor-patient confidentiality still applies even if the patient permanently stops going to that particular office or facility, or is no longer considered an active patient.
Sensitive patient information should be kept safe from persons both within and outside the facility or office.

There are some exceptions to the rule of confidentiality whereby the patient’s permission is not required for release of their records. In general, the following situations would not give cause to a medical malpractice lawsuit for breach of confidentiality:

Data regarding certain communicable diseases, bacteria, or viruses must be reported to State Health Officers such as the Center for Communicable Diseases or The World Health Organization
Cases of child abuse, spousal abuse, or elder abuse
In order to authorize payment for claims, insurance companies always need at least a diagnosis. Supporting data such as diagnostic tests, lab results and more may need to be supplied as well
A medical malpractice attorney will issue a subpoena for records to the medical professional who is being charged with malpractice.

It is the health-care provider’s duty to create and maintain a trustworthy relationship with the patient. When that trust is broken, they can and should be held accountable for the serious negative consequences experienced by a patient. If you have suffered due to the inappropriate disclosure of your medical information, a medical malpractice attorney can advise you of your legal rights and options you may wish to take.

R. Klettke is a freelance writer. He writes about personal injury and medical malpractice law and other matters of jurisprudence.

Important Advisory: This article is not intended to provide legal advice upon which you or anyone else should rely in making any decisions regarding the instituting or prosecuting of a legal claim. Laws and rules relating to the bringing of a claim vary widely from state to state. You should always contact a personal injury attorney to obtain information as to the rules and the laws pertaining to any claim you might have.

Tips For Medical Malpractice Victims

What is medical negligence or medical malpractice? As a general rule of thumb, medical malpractice, which is additionally known as medical negligence, occurs when a health care supplier causes injury or maybe death to a patient when she fails to act among the confines of commonplace medical care. Putting it another approach, medical malpractice is committed by a doctor or different health care provider when she or he does not act moderately and responsibly, and this unreasonable conduct causes harm to the patient.

What types are medical malpractice are there? Typically speaking, medical malpractice will commonly occur below the subsequent circumstances:
?Birth injury
?Anesthesia malpractice
?Prognosis misdiagnosis
?Surgical negligence
?Contaminated blood
?Injury from pharmaceuticals/ Overdoses
Is medical malpractice common? Sadly to mention, medical mistakes are common occurrences here within the United States. A report that was recently published by the Institute of Medication stated that as several as 98,000 folks die each year in the hospitals in American due to medical mistakes. Therefore, in our country medical mistakes compose the eighth leading cause of death. Injuries occur to over 1.3 million folks a year that involve medication errors.

What ought to you do if you're thinking that your injuries could are caused by medical malpractice? Definitely not all medical mistakes constitute malpractice. However, if you or if a loved one has suffered a serious injury which is sudden or has even died, then you ought to definitely question whether that death or injury was the result of medical negligence or medical malpractice. You not only owe it to yourself but to your relations to know the reality and hold the health care supplier answerable for the hurt that has been caused. Countless dollars might be at stake.

What should you are doing if you've got been victimized by medical malpractice? You'll find that you are experiencing pain and suffering in addition to severe monetary hardships. There's no want to go through this troublesome time by yourself. You as the patient ought to not be needed to get the mistakes of your doctor or his or her negligence. It is important for you to locate and contact an experienced lawyer who will be ready to protect your rights plus get you the compensation you deserve.

What else will be done different than sue for malpractice? The first step involves informing the health care provider who performed the service. She could not be aware that there was a problem. You'll find that the majority of doctors and pharmacists are honest individuals, and they can take the required action to correct a mistake. Another step which will be taken is to contact licensing authorities or state regulatory boards therefore that they will review the case in query and take disciplinary action if necessary. Penalties, fines and therefore the revocation or suspension of a license can be disbursed by state agencies and organizations.

You need to understand that whether or not you file a medical malpractice suit and win it, that can still not un-do the harm that was caused by the negligent actions. However it can ease the money hardship that you'll be enduring as a results of that negligence, plus helping others to not fall victim to the current by having a doctor's license suspended or revoked because she isn't doing their job properly.

PA Malpractice Lawyer Story

I’ll call my friend Ryan, since I don’t want to reveal his/her true identity for legal reasons. Ryan is an avid runner and does around 60 miles of running per week. That’s a lot of running and a lot of physical activity, which makes him susceptible to injury more than your average person.

Unfortunately, Ryan did suffer a pretty bad knee injury in which he had to undergo surgery. The surgery went fine, or so everybody thought. It turns out that Ryan’s surgeon had been negligent in multiple ways (again, I can’t share that information for legal and privacy reasons), and Ryan ended up barely being able to walk. Long story short, he ended up suing the doctor for negligence, and he won. Why? Because he had a good PA malpractice lawyer.

Now the purpose of this article is not to advertise one PA malpractice lawyer over another, as that is outside the scope.

The purpose of this article, however, is to let you know how important it is to choose a good attorney. I have worked in the industry and I have heard several horror stories of people who have been victims of medical malpractice, decided to sue, and then further became a victim of a horrible attorney who did not know what they were doing and were not knowledgeable in all the laws surrounding medical negligence.

Where To Find A Good PA Malpractice Lawyer

The easiest place to find a good attorney, besides asking around to your friends and family, is by searching the internet, because they all have websites now (especially the good ones). If you do a simple Google search for “PA malpractice lawyer”, you should be able to easily find a good attorney to help you out with your case. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments section of this post.

If not, I wish you the best in finding a good attorney, fighting your case, and winning a lot of money.

Tony McGuigano is the owner of the Pennsylvania malpractice attorney website, as well as a website called Vertigo Exercises.