Family physicians are compassionate people. But sometimes their desire to help a patient turns tragic. Sometimes a patient who has chronic or severe pain will ask his family doctor for help in managing the pain. Family practitioners are certainly permitted to treat their patients for pain. However, when a patient does not respond to short-acting narcotics, or the narcotic does not completely manage their pain, a doctor may unwittingly put a patient at risk of death by increasing the narcotic medication, by adding other narcotics which result in overdose or by changing to a stronger medication that the patient does not have sufficient tolerance for. Patients who die from narcotic overdose often become sleepy, and die in their sleep. When your family member visits the family doctor and receives a prescription for pain, encourage him to ask questions, talk tot he pharmacist and do his own research. Overdose deaths from narcotic medications are largely preventable. Visit www.overdoselaw.com for more information about narcotic medication overdose.

Prescription drug overdoses are fast becoming the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. Many people assume that these deaths are from drug abuse, and thousands of deaths are from prescription drug abuse. Children and adolescents find these drugs in medicine cabinets and parents may not realize pills are missing. However, a substantial number of deaths occur in patients for whom prescription drugs are prescribed. Doctors often assume that the patients who overdose on prescribed drugs were not taking the medication as directed. Patients should never self-medicate with opioids or benzodiazepines, as this can lead to overdose and death. Neither should patients mix medications with alcohol or take additional medications he or she has not disclosed to the doctor, because of the risk of dangerous drug-drug interactions. However, some deaths occur even when the patient takes prescription opiates as directed by the doctor. When this happens, there is often a lawsuit and claim against the doctor’s insurance. For more information about drug overdose lawsuits, visit http://www.overdoselaw.com

I often get calls from family members whose loved ones have died under suspicious circumstances. People call me and claim it must have been a drug overdose because the patient had just started a new medication and died in his sleep within a couple of days. The coroner signs the death certificate as “heart attack” and “natural death” and no autopsy is ordered. I usually tell the family that without an autopsy, the family cannot prove that the patient received a toxic overdose of a drug. The family protests that the coroner refused to do an autopsy. That may be true. But the family can always insist on an autopsy. The family does not have a right to state funding for it, but the family does have a right to have an autopsy done. If you have questions about drug overdoses, visit www.overdoselaw.com

However, some drug overdoses occur when a doctor prescribes the wrong medication, and it causes a patient’s death, or when a doctor prescribes too much of a medication and it causes a patient’s death. Some doctors even prescribe medications or drugs which they are not permitted to prescribe, and that can cause a patient’s death. Or sometimes doctors prescribe a drug that has a dangerous interaction with other drugs the patient is taking and that causes death. Patients should be able to rely on their physicians to make safe prescribing decisions.

Sometimes people ask, do I have to file a lawsuit against the doctor for the overdose death? Isn’t it better to settle with the doctor who caused the wrongful death of a patient? Don’t doctors want to settle lawsuits for wrongful death? If not, why don’t doctors settle overdose death lawsuits?

Practically speaking, here is what happens when a patient dies from a drug overdose. The family is questioning why the patient died. They request records and have the medical records reviewed by an overdose lawyer. Once the records are reviewed, if there is a claim for wrongful death, there are two options: file suit against the doctor who prescribed the medication that resulted in the overdose death or contact the physician who prescribed the medication that resulted in the overdose death. Sometimes there is not time to contact the physician before the statute of limitations runs. But even when the lawyer contacts the physician and asserts a claim against the doctor for the overdose death, almost every time, the physician refers the matter to his insurance carrier. The insurance carrier for the doctor has no incentive to “settle” a case or pay money before suit is filed. That is because if the patient’s family does not file a lawsuit for wrongful death for the overdose, the statute will run, and the insurance company does not have to pay anything. Have you ever had an experience with an insurance company, where they do not pay what they owe until they have to? Same thing happens when there is a patient’s death from methadone, or another drug overdose. So, most of the time, a lawyer must file suit in order to preserve the claim, so that negotiations can begin with the insurance company as a result of the wrongful death by overdose.

At Overdose Law, we often get questions from families from around the country, wanting to know what “.35 mg/L” means for a blood concentration of hydrocodone.

If you have a toxicology result that you would like to submit for interpretation, please email the lawyers at Overdose Law, and they can email you a chart that will help you understand what the numbers mean. www.overdoselaw.com

Sometimes, health care providers prescribe numerous medications to a patient, many of which can contain acetaminophen, resulting in an unintentional overdose.

Sometimes death or brain damage occurs when a hospital or doctor gives a chemotherapy dose that is too high. Some deaths occur because the chemo dose is increased too quickly. Sometimes a pharmacy dispenses the wrong drug or dispenses too much of the chemo drug. Sometimes a pump gives the wrong amount of the chemo drug. Hospitals and physicians have obligations to give accurate and complete information to patients about chemotherapy drugs. In these cases and others, a lawsuit might be the right thing to do. If a hospital has to pay for a fatal mistake, we believe it will institute safer practices in the future. A chemotherapy overdose lawsuit just might save the next life.

Most legal cases proceed through four stages. The first stage is the investigative stage. During this stage, in a drug overdose lawsuit, a good overdose lawyer gathers all medical, pharmacy, death, and personal records. The records are reviewed by lawyers, pharmacists, toxicologists, pharmacists, and any other persons the lawyer retains to advise her about the case.