What Are the Most Common Pharmacy Errors?

If you have been harmed due to pharmacy negligence, you might be struggling to get back to work or to get your life back on track. You might not have had a chance to decide what you want to do about your injuries or who you can turn to in order to get help and compensation for your injuries.

If you have been injured related to a pharmacy error or pharmacy negligence, there are some common pharmacy errors that you might have been a victim of. You might not have known in advance what the most common pharmacy errors were, but now you might have questions.

If you want to learn more about the most common pharmacy errors, read on for more information.

What is Pharmacy Negligence?

Pharmacy negligence happens when your pharmacist does not exercise the proper care when dispensing your medications. They might make any number of mistakes related to this lack of attention, and all of them can be deadly or lead to lifelong health issues for you or a family member.

Pharmacy errors and pharmacy negligence are serious due to the nature of the harm that can result from these mistakes. You might make mistakes at your job once in a while, but it is not likely that you will cause someone significant harm or even be responsible for their death.

If you think that you have been harmed through pharmacy negligence, here are the most common reasons for pharmacy errors.

What Are the Most Common Pharmacy Errors?

There is a long list of reasons that you might have been harmed by your pharmacist, but these are the most common kinds of pharmacy errors. Make sure that you ask your attorney to look into any instance of possible pharmacy neglect carefully to make sure that you can get the compensation that you deserve for your injuries.

Incorrect Medication

Many drugs look the same and it can be easy to grab a medication that is not the right one for a patient’s needs and dispense it without realizing that it is wrong. Most medications are the same color and relative shape and the only difference between them is the label on the bottle and the markings that are imprinted on each pill.

If your pharmacist cannot read the handwriting on your prescription or the chart notes are not reviewed, it can be easy for them to make a significant error that can lead to long-term injury or even death. Incorrect medications are the biggest infraction of pharmacists across the US each year, and you might have been the victim of this kind of error.

Incorrect Dosage

While it is the task of the doctor that is requesting your prescription to make sure that the right dosage for your height and weight is asked for, you might find that your doctor has made a math error. This can lead to your pharmacist dispensing the wrong dosage of the medication to you and advising you to take too much or too little of the medication once it has been provided to you.

While the doctor should know how to choose the right dosage of medication for your needs, your pharmacist should read your chart notes and verify that the dosage that is listed makes sense for your height, weight, and other important health details. A pharmacist still has a duty of care that requires that they verify the dosage of each medication makes sense for each unique patient.

Missing Drug Interactions

While you might assume that your doctor is responsible for verifying that you can to cannot take medication safely, the ultimate responsibility for this part of the medication dispensing process lies with your pharmacist. Your pharmacist needs to look at your chart records and verify that you are not taking any medications that can interact with this new medication.

Drug interactions can lead to serious conditions that have a long-term impact on your health, and in some cases, they can lead to death. Your pharmacist is required to double-check that there are not any possible drugs that might interact with the new medication that you are going to be taking.

Lack of Counsel

This can be a major problem when a patient is given a new medication. If your pharmacist is busy and does not have the time to talk to you when you pick up your medication, this can lead to confusion about the right dosage and any side effects that you should be aware of.

Your pharmacist is required to provide counsel about any medication that is given to you, even if you have taken the medication in the past. You should never leave the pharmacy without counsel and you should never accept counsel from anyone who is not your pharmacist. If you have been told that you cannot get counsel, you will need to stay and wait to talk to a pharmacist about your medication.

For those who are not aware of these rules and regulations, harmful side effects can be a major factor in your long-term health. You should never take a medication that has not been explained to you thoroughly. Confusion can be the biggest cause of pharmacy harm for many patients, and being acceptant of a lack of counsel is how many medication-related injuries occur.

Whether you choose to take the medication you were given without counsel or not, your pharmacist is still to blame for neglecting this important part of the dispensing process.

Pharmacy Error Can Lead to Significant Harm

If you have been harmed by a pharmacy error, you need to make sure that you work with a skilled pharmacy negligence lawyer. You will need to have the right support to seek the compensation that you deserve for your injuries. A skilled personal injury lawyer can help you to get the support that you need when seeking compensation for your injuries.

Working with the right personal injury lawyer matters and Kennedy Law Firm can help you to get the compensation that you need for your injuries. Contact us today for a consultation!