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When Policies Aren’t Followed, Harmful Medication Mistakes Can Happen

David W. Hodges
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4/27/2013
David W. Hodges
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Pharmacies have policies in place in order to reduce pharmacy errors and keep customers safe. However, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians have been known to take shortcuts and fail to follow the pharmacy’s policies. Sadly, when pharmacy staff members do not abide by the policies in place, patients may suffer from their negligent actions.

One example of this is when a prescription sits behind a pharmacy counter for 7 to 10 days or longer. If a customer does not come and pick up his or her prescription during this time, a pharmacy is supposed to leave the pills in the consumer bottle, block out the customer’s name, and put the bottle back on the shelf next to the stock bottles it came from. This process is called re-shelving, and it happens more often than people imagine.

Customers call in prescriptions and sometimes forget about them, start feeling better and decide they don’t need the medication after all, or don’t want to spend the money on medicine. There are various reasons why some customers never pick up their prescription medications.  When pharmacists follow policies, this situation isn’t a problem; however, injuries have occurred when pharmacy workers have poured the unused pills back into the original bottles.

If a pharmacist puts the unused tablets into the wrong container or if the wrong medication was originally filled and put back into the original container, another patient can suffer. The next time a prescription is filled using these containers, the wrong pills could come out and make their way into the hands of unsuspecting customers due to the pill’s similar size, shape, and color.

If you were harmed after taking the wrong medication, you could have a pharmacy malpractice claim. Contact Kennedy Hodges, L.L.P. at 888-526-7616 for help receiving justice and receive a complimentary case consultation and a FREE copy of our report, How to Make Pharmacies Pay for Injuries Caused by Medication Errors.



Category: Wrong Medication

Labels: filing a pharmacy lawsuit medication error at pharmacy pharmacy dispensing error pharmacy drug error

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