According to a story posted at http://www.local6.com/news/16045570/detail.html an Orlando area Walgreens misfilled a three month old baby's prescription for Histacol DM syrup. Apparently, the child was supposed to receive 1/4 ml of the syrup. However, Walgreens pharmacy typed the wrong dose instructions on the bottle. Instead of 1/4 ml, the prescription was mislabeled as 1/4 teaspoon. The dosing mistake led to the family giving their daughter six times the recomended amount of medication. Her parents told http://www.local6.com their daughter became non-responsive shortly after taking the medicine. Walgreens admitted the pharmacy mistake in a phone call to the family two hours after the mistake occurred. Unfortunately, the family had already given the first dose of the medication to their daughter. It appears, however, the error was caught in time to prevent any long term damage. The family rushed their baby to the hospital where she was stablized and sent home.

Stories like this shed light on the ongoing problem of pharmacy malpractice. Often such medication mistakes occur in part because of the pressure associated with high volume pharmacies that are understaffed. It is too early to tell if such prsesures led to this medication mistake. However, several personal injury lawsuits against Walgreens in the last two years have alleged the pressure to move quickly in filling prescriptions contributed to misfilled prescriptions that caused death. In fact, their have been at least three multimillion dollar jury verdicts against Walgreens since 2006 involving death as a result of pharmacy errors.

In this case, Walgreens offered the family $2000.00 as compensation for their mistake. The baby's mother is quoted in the article as saying "Two thousand dollars for almost killing my baby, Its almost like, don't bother." Her sentiments are not unusual. Family members often feel insulted by lowball settlement offers made by companies in situations such as this one. So why did Walgreens offer such a small amount? The truth is offering token hush money often works. The drumbeat of tort reform has conditioned people to think it is imoral to hold wrongdoers financially responsible for pain and suffering damages. For example, the baby's father apparently said "Don't get me wrong, we could use the money or $2000.00. But if this will save someone else's life, they can keep their $2000.00."

The fathers desire to hold Walgreens accountable by having the media report on the issue is commendable. But one story in the paper is not going to change anything. It is also true that Walgreens paying the family money for their pain and suffering is not going to change anything. Paying pain and suffering damages will, however, hold Walgreens accountable for the damages they have caused. Furthermore, the cumulative effect of media exposure and lawsuits, over time can change a wrongdoers incentive to continue with policies that cause harm.

Scott Distasio
Orlando Pharmacy Malpractice Lawyer

Distasio Law Firm
Helping Injured People
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022

Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer

On April 14, 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided three pharmacies in Pinellas County Florida. The Pharmacies are the Rx Shop at 5322 Duhme Road in Madeira Beach, the Rx Shop at 810 S. Fort Harrison Ave in Clearwater, and Seminole Drugs at 10720 Park Blvd. in Seminole.
It appears the FBI was not looking for pharmacy malpractice, pharmacy mistakes, or medication errors. According to their press release, the FBI , along with other law enforcement agencies, is investigating healthcare fraud. The circumstances surrounding how the FBI believes the fraud occurred is unclear at this time.

Scott Distasio
Tampa Pharmacy Malpractice Lawyer

DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022

Tampa Personal Injury Attorney

A new study published in the April 2008 issue of the Journal of Pediatrics found that 7.3 percent of hospitalized children participating in the study were victims of medication errors. Some of the children were actually victims of multiple medication mistakes. Therefore, the actual error rate was 11.1 per 100 patients. According to an article on the subject by Lindsey Taylor published in www.mcall.com on April 14, 2008, that translates into as much as 540,000 children annually. The alarmingly high numbers seem to prove that hospital medication mistakes occur much more frequently than can be accounted for by the traditional documenting methods.

Traditionally, estimates regarding how many hospital medication errors have been based on self policing methods including self reporting and peer review. Researchers and government data collectors have always suggested that the self policing methods vastly underestimate the scope of the problem. This new study backs up the researchers claims. In fact the study indicates that only 3.7 percent of the errors found in the study were identified using traditional voluntary reporting methods.

The new study found the additional medication mistakes by focusing on triggers or "red flags" while reviewing patient charts. The triggers included observing in the chart documentation of known medication side effects, unusual lab results, and the giving of antidotes for drug overdoses. In other words, the focus was on actively looking for medication errors instead of relying on wrongdoers to report their mistakes.

To anyone that studies human nature, the results are really not surprising. There will always be a percentage of the population that will try to cover up their mistakes. It is naive to think that the percentage of such people is less in the medical community than in the general population. Simply put, morality does not increase with education and intelligence.
Personal injury lawyers are often criticized by tort reformers in the medical community for holding them accountable for their mistakes. The claim is usually that mistakes are rare and that personal injury attorneys are simply exploiting unfortunate outcomes. The solution for these folks is to eliminate the tort system in favor of self reporting, self policing, and self correcting of mistakes. It will be interesting to see if the results of this study will lead even one tort reformer in the medical community to reflect on whether such a system will do more harm by failing to catch those that put their own self interest in not being held accountable for their mistakes ahead of what is in the best interest of their patients.

Scott Distasio
Florida Hospital Medication Mistake Lawyer

DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022

Tampa Personal Injury Attorney

On January 16, 2008, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty abruptly stopped a hearing before it was completed after becoming frustrated with what he apparently perceived as Allstate purposefully not complying with his requests for documents. The hearing was part of the state's investigation into why insurance companies including Allstate had sought to increase rates by almost 42%. Allstate refused to provide all of the documents requested claiming they were either confidential trade secrets and or not relevant to the inquiry. Many of us that represent clients in personal injury lawsuits against Allstate and its insured's are used to similar stalling tactics. Often the tactic works in Allstate's favor. This time it seems to have backfired on them.

Insurance Commissioner McCarty was so irritated with Allstate's failure to comply that he suspended the various Allstate companies' right to sell new insurance policies in the state of Florida until they produce the documents requested. Initially Allstate ignored the request and appealed the Commissioner's decision to the 1st District Court of Appeals. The appellate court gave Allstate a reprieve from handing over the documents until it decided whether the Insurance Commissioner had the authority to order the production of the documents. On April 4, 2008, the court sided with the Insurance Commissioner. According to some media outlets, under the court's current order, Allstate has until April 14, 2008 to produce the documents. Allstate itself has announced it has until April 19, 2008 to decide how it will proceed.

If History serves as any predictor of future conduct, then I would not count on Allstate timely producing the documents requested. In typical Allstate fashion, they flooded the public domain with 150,000 pages of documents by posting them on their website. Allstate had previously produced over 400,000 pages of documents. It has used the sheer volume of documents produced as a smokescreen to suggest that it is fully cooperating with the state to produce the documents requested. The response attempts to portray Allstate as a victim. These stalling tactics and attempts to demonize anyone asking them for unflattering information often works in personal injury lawsuits because it usually takes many years for a civil lawsuit to make it through the appellate process. Allstate simply wears out its opponents. However, the appellate process in this instance was substantially shorter. The first round of Appeals was over in less than three months. Furthermore, the state of Florida is not your typical Allstate opponent. The state has the financial resources to match Allstate dollar for dollar.

As Commissioner McCarty stated, "They have created their own situation. They have blatantly and flagrantly ignored the law. They did not take this process seriously. The only effective and rational response was a suspension of business." One has to wonder, If Allstate has clean hands, why not produce the documents for inspection instead of wasting the state of Florida's time and money fighting the subpeona.

Scott Distasio
Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer
DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022

A recent lawsuit between Wal-Mart and its employee, Debbie Shank, has very publically demonstrated that the myth perpetuated by some tort reformers that personal injury lawsuits raise the cost of healthcare is simply not true. As the Wal-Mart case demonstrates, personal injury lawsuits actually decrease the cost of health insurance.

The Wal-Mart lawsuit is based on the simple fact that most if not all health insurance contracts contain a clause requiring a personal injury victim to pay the health plan back out of any personal injury recovery for all health insurance proceeds paid as a result of a wrongdoer's negligence. In the Wal-Mart case, Wal-Mart administers its own health insurance plan for its employees. When Shank was injured in an auto accident, Wal-Mart paid approximately $470,000.00 worth of health care benefits on Shank's behalf. After Shank recovered about $1 million dollars in a settlement, Wal-Mart successfully sued Shank to recover from the settlement proceeds, its entire $470,000.00. The courts decision to require Shank to pay back her health insurance for the benefits she received is not unusual. In fact, what is unusual is the fact that a lawsuit was needed to resolve the conflict. In the overwhelming majority of cases in the state of Florida, and probably the United States, the personal injury lawyer and the health insurance plan negotiate the amount to pay back and the health insurance plan is reimbursed when the settlement is paid. In the absence of the personal injury claim, there would be no settlement, the health insurance would never be paid back, and health insurance rates would actually be higher to make up the difference.

The dispute in the Wal-Mart case involves the fact that Wal-Mart was unwilling to negotiate. They wanted all of the money back. As the appellate court case demonstrates, the law is on Wal-Mart's side. The question raised by the media attention from television commentators Anderson Cooper from CNN and Keith Olberman from MSNBC is whether or not the current state of the law is fair. From the perspective of plaintiffs such as Debbie Shank, the law is clearly unfair.

Under the current state of the law, Ms Shank must pay from her settlement the cost of bringing the claim and her attorney's fees. Health insurance plans such as Wal-Mart, however, get a free ride off the plaintiffs back. They pay nothing for the costs and attorneys fees and take no risk in the litigation. If there is no recovery, it does not cost them anything. If there is a recovery, they stand there with their hand out demanding full payment. The fair thing to do would be at a minimum to require the health insurance plan to reduce their claim by its fair share of the costs and attorneys fees. Many reputable health insurance plans will ultimately agree to this reduction because they know that the plaintiff has incurred these costs on their behalf.

The current state of the law often also fails to take into account whether the settlement proceeds will take care of all of the plaintiff's needs in the future. Often, the proceeds remaining after paying costs and attorneys fees do not. That is certainly the case for Mrs. Shank. The accident left her severely brain damaged and wheelchair bound. She was left with $417,000.00 after paying costs and attorney's fees, but her anticipated future needs were in the millions. Since Wal-Mart wanted its entire $470,000.00 back, she would have been left with nothing.

There are many possible reasons why Mrs. Shank's settlement did not accomplish paying for all her future needs. Sometimes the wrongdoer did not purchase enough liability insurance and or does not have enough financial assets to pay the whole claim. Sometimes, plaintiffs agree to less than full value because of the risk that a jury will decide the person or entity sued was not responsible and therefore award nothing. Regardless of the reason, accepting less than full value in a settlement is a common occurrence. If health plans are not willing to compromise and take less than full value in such situations, plaintiffs will not find it worthwhile to bring claims. For example, I am sure Mrs. Shank did not bring her claim for the sole purpose of paying her lawyers and Wal-mart. Simply put, if health plans insist on full value, many claims will not be brought and their zest to get "everything they think they deserve" will result in them getting nothing.

Recently, Wal-mart gave in to the political pressure generated by television commentators like Anderson Cooper and Kieth Olberman by dropping its lawsuit against Mrs. Shank. Unfortunately, most plaintiffs in this situation do not get help from such heavy hitters. The result is they are simply out of luck.

Of course, not everyone thinks Wal-mart made the right decision. Radio and television personality Glenn Beck for example has equated Mrs. Shank and the media that helped her as "terrorists" engaged in "economic blackmail". It appears from his comments that Mr. Beck has blindly jumped into the controversy head first without doing enough research to thoroughly understand the issues. He does make a good point regarding the fact that Wal-mart was more than generous after getting caught overreaching when it finally decided to waive its right to any payment instead of simply reducing the amount it was demanding. However, his arguments fall apart when measured by his own claimed conservative values. For example, he claims she agreed to the terms of the health plan when she accepted the health benefits. The truth is an employee has absolutely no bargaining power regarding the terms of the health insurance selected by their employer. In fact the employee generally has no way of knowing what is in the fine print of the contract because they are not given the actual contract at the time of signing up. Of course, even if the contract were given to the employee; the employee could find the small clause berried in the many pages of fine print; and the employee had the education to understand the arcane legalese within the document; the employee would still have no choice. If the employee wanted the insurance, the employee would have to accept the clause. Health insurance plans know this and take advantage of the situation. They do not put fair terms in their contracts such as agreeing to an amount reduced by attorney's fees and costs. Instead, they overreach and try to get more than their fair share simply because they can. If Mr. Beck were truly concerned with the conservative value of personal accountability, he would be praising Wal-mart for reassessing its previous policy of taking more than its fair share just because it can, instead of calling catastrophically injured personal injury plaintiffs and those that advocate for them "terrorists".

Scott Distasio
Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer
DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022

As the number of prescription drugs consumed by Americans continues to increase, so do the odds that a pharmacy mistake will occur. Common pharmacy errors include misfiling prescriptions with the wrong medication and providing the consumer with the wrong dose of medication. The problems seem to have escalated as the retail drug store industry continues to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions. Their emphasis on increasing shareholder value at times can create a conflict with the pharmacist's duty to look out for the consumers' safety. According to Kevin McCoy and Erik Brady in their February 11, 2008 USA Today article "Five-year-old took wrong medication for two months" there appears to be evidence that corporate policies can contribute to prescription errors.

There are two ways a corporation can increase profits. The first way is to increase revenue. One of the corporate pharmacy policies meant to increase revenue also appears to lead to increased prescription errors. The policy involves encouraging individual pharmacies within the corporate chain to fill a larger and larger volume of prescriptions in a given time period. The encouragement can occur in many different ways. Some corporate chains have guidelines on the number of prescriptions a particular pharmacist should be able to fill in a given time frame. Some focus on increasing the use of pharmacy assistants that are paid less and have less education than pharmacists. Others give bonuses based in part on the volume of prescriptions filled.

The other way to increase corporate profits is to decrease costs. One of the largest cost components for a pharmacy is employee salaries. By decreasing the amount paid to individual employees and decreasing the number of employees necessary to perform the work, the chain stores can increase profitability. However, the emphasis on controlling the budgets, staffing levels, and hours worked of all of the pharmacies within the chain can lead to increased pharmacy mistakes when there are not enough qualified employees to perform job functions safely.

Scott Distasio
Florida Pharmacy Malpractice Attorney

DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022

Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer

As we go through our work day, our thoughts are often on things other than our work. For most of us, our drifting mind means lack of productivity. A mistake caused by such lack of concentration simply means extra work fixing a problem. For health care professionals involved in the medication delivery system, the consequences are often much more serious.

According to statistics found at the United States Food And Drug Administration Website, www.fda.gov, between 770,000 and 1.3 million patients are injured each year by medication errors; as many as 7000 people die each year due to medication errors; and nearly 1 of every 5 doses of medication given in U.S. hospitals involve medication errors. Given the size of the problem, you would expect much more media attention would be focused on the issue. However, if it were not for the recent events surrounding the overdose of Dennis Quaid's twins with Heparin, most of us would never even suspect there is a problem. The reality is the Quiad twins were lucky. They appear to have escaped the ordeal with little or no long term repercussions. Unfortunately, many other children are not so lucky. For example, I recently represented an infant that was the victim of a medication error in a hospital. He is now in a permanent vegetative state similar to Terry Schiavo. The financial recovery we achieved on his behalf will pay for his care for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, it will not change the outcome.

While it is too late for my client, it is not too late for others. Ultimately, only health care providers themselves can solve the problem. However, there are many things we can do to help. Encouraging public awareness of the problem with medication errors is the first step. Educating yourself regarding what to look for and what questions to ask concerning your own medication is the next step. The final step of holding those accountable for their mistakes is one that hopefully none of us will ever have to take.

Scott Distasio
Florida Medicine Mistake Lawyer

DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICES: TAMPA
1-888-595-0022