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Pharmacy Mistakes

When you are sick, you hold the reasonable expectation that health care workers will take every possible precaution to ensure your safety and well-being. Sadly, despite the years of extensive training and education that are needed for many health fields, medical professionals often make inexcusable mistakes to the detriment of their patients’ health. Many Americans report having been given the wrong medication, either through a doctor’s erroneous prescription or a pharmacist’s mistake.

Over 1.5 million Americans each year are affected by medication errors in hospitals alone, with millions more facing errors from prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy. Common reasons why you may be given the wrong prescription include:

  • Incorrect dosage. Either too much or too little of the drug is provided to the patient.
  • Inadequate or confusing instructions. Many patients report that their doctors instructed them to take a drug in one manner, while the medication instructions say something different.
  • Drug interactions. A new prescription interferes with another drug the patient takes for an existing condition.
  • Drug allergies. A patient may be allergic to the drug.
  • Illegible prescription. The pharmacist misinterprets the doctor’s orders because of illegible writing.
  • Doctor error. The doctor prescribes the wrong drug, often writing down the name of a similar-sounding drug.
  • Pharmacist error. The pharmacist incorrectly fills the prescription, often with a similarly-named drug.

It is important to ask both your doctor and your pharmacist extensive questions about each of your medications so that you understand how they work, how to use them, and what possible side effects may occur. If you ever feel that your prescription is incorrect, do not hesitate to call your doctor or your pharmacist to rectify the situation.

Contact Us

If you or a loved one has been injured or killed because of a medication error, contact the New Jersey pharmaceutical errors lawyers of Levinson Axelrod at 800-346-5529 to discuss your legal options.