Archive for the ‘health care fraud’ Category

Medication adherence, which is really the extent to which patients take medication as prescribed by their doctors, is important to the medication’s effectiveness to cure and treat the particular illness.  Poor medication adherence can have a particularly negative impact on the medication’s ability to treat many diseases, causing more severe complications from the illness and decreased quality of life for patients.   Many factors cause poor adherence; the most common ones being the inability to pay for medications, lack of belief that the treatment is necessary or helping, busy schedules, forgetfulness, and confusion about how and when to take the medication.

The Food Drug Administration recently published an article on its website, which discusses the importance of medication adherence and provides tips on how to take different types of medication correctly.  For example, when taking antibiotics, the FDA warns strict medication adherence is vital.  If antibiotics are not taken as prescribed by the doctor, a small number of bacteria is likely to survive and continue to replicate and become resistant to the antibiotics.  The same reasoning goes for the HIV virus.  When patients with AIDS skip or stop taking their prescribed medication, they might develop strains of HIV that are more resistant to the prescribed medication and even some medications that patients aren’t currently on.

The FDA advises people to communicate with their doctors or pharmacists if they are experiencing side effects of their prescribed medication and understand how long they need to take the medication.  Setting a daily routine to take medication, keeping medications in noticeable places, using daily dosing containers, and keeping written or computerized schedules are all good ways to help people remember to take their medication.

Ultimately, if there is ever an issue of negligence, consumers want to make sure it is medical negligence outside of their control and not negligence of their own.  Making sure you properly take medications, at least according to the FDA, is an important consumer health issue.

If you visit a relative or friend in the hospital but are asked to leave because “visiting hours” are over, can you trust that the hospital workers will monitor and administer the utmost care and attention to your loved one? 

Disturbingly, the answer is no.  According to the AARP, an estimated 98,000 hospital patients die every year in the United States because of preventable errors, such as mistaken identity or medication mixups.  There have been many cases where a patient has been harmed because of mislabeling on a medication or on the patient chart that leads to the incorrect medication being administered.  Or perhaps the hospital staff simply may not notice when a patient is in pain or is in need of assistance – while the nurses have many patients they must tend to, a relative remaining by the bedside might notice something such as an adverse reaction to medication or an IV drip that had pulled out of a vein, or even something less specific.  Merely noting that the patient “doesn’t look so good” might prompt a doctor or a nurse to take a closer look – it might be nothing, but it might mean preventing the patient’s condition from worsening.  A simple mixup could have the nurses administering a test or an injection that may be meant for the patient on the next hospital bed.  Such errors could be prevented by instituting unlimited visiting hours, as some hospitals have, allowing relatives and friends to stay with the patient through medical procedures and even during some emergencies, sharing their observations and concerns.

Human beings make mistakes, and doctors and nurses are human beings.  But the price of not taking every available precaution with such preventable errors can be catastrophic in certain cases, and the suffering caused to patients and their loved ones may be immeasurable.  People should not hesitate to voice their concerns regarding the care of loved ones in the hospital.  Though it may seem to be stepping on the toes of the doctors and nurses, the possible outcome of a preventable error could be disastrous.  Karen Aydt Curtiss, who is writing a book on how to help a loved one in the hospital, titled “Someone With You,” makes some suggestions such as asking nurses about new medications, ensuring the drug orders match the patient’s ID bracelet, asking everyone who enters the room to wash their hands and sterilize any equipment, and keeping a journal of your observations.

Patients should not have to pay the price for these preventable errors.  If you or a loved one has suffered from such errors, you should contact a New York Medical Malpractice attorney today to discuss your legal rights and options.

Controversy is building over a lucrative side job for many university doctors and medical professions: giving speeches at events funded by prescription drug manufacturers. Across the country, university doctors are receiving over 20,000 dollars per promotional talk to “educate” other doctors on proper use of drugs. But some watchdogs are concerned that these promotional talks could pressure doctors into prescribing particular drugs, negatively affecting patient care in the process. Moreover, as the university doctors often work at publicly-funded institutions, these critics believe that taxpayer dollars are being used to aid doctors in promoting drug firms.

Although the Senate has considered a bill to track and publish payments made by pharmaceutical companies to doctors, intermediary entities called “medical education and communication companies” complicate the investigatory process. These middleman firms, funded by prescription corporations, organize training events at restaurants and lecture halls and pay doctors to give speeches. Because the go-between firms directly pay university doctors, the doctors do not have to disclose that the money may have ultimately come from prescription drug manufacturers. University doctors never report these top-dollar deals as a conflict of interest.

Other medical professionals are beginning to criticize these promotional and educational events. Some academic doctors who are veterans of the promotional-talk circuit claim that lecturers use slides provided by pharmaceutical companies. These talking points are intended to persuade doctors to begin prescribing certain drugs in order to boost sales. Because of the risks associated with inaccurately prescribed pharmaceuticals, medical school administrators are beginning to ban doctors from giving promotional talks, or from using the university’s name or logo during speeches. This policy is aimed at ending any unseemly relationship between state medical schools and private drug corporations.

Anyone with knowledge of fraud committed against the United States government, specifically the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), could have a whistleblower lawsuit. Contact us for more information about pharmaceutical corporations, whistleblower lawsuits, or to file a claim.