Prescription medications are the go-to solution for a variety of different medical issues. Doctors prescribe muscle relaxants and pain relievers for whiplash after car crashes. They recommend drugs for blood pressure issues and weight loss, as well as mental health challenges.
There is an ever-growing number of different medications available to help physicians control the symptoms of their patients and treat their underlying conditions. Unfortunately, doctors do not always abide by appropriate medical standards when relying on prescription medications for patient treatment. Their involvement in the process may end the day that they write the prescription.
Physicians should monitor patients to see how well they respond to the medication. They may have to switch drugs or modify the dosage for optimal efficacy. They also often need to help patients at the end of their treatment. Doctors who simply end a prescription by refusing to provide a refill may expose patients to harm.
What should happen at the end of a prescription?
Patients may need to taper off of a drug
Abruptly ending a prescription can cause several negative outcomes. In some cases, patients may experience withdrawal symptoms and severe medical side effects. Many people are aware that it is necessary to slowly taper people off of prescription pain relievers.
There are many other drugs that people cannot stop taking immediately without risk. Prednisone and other steroids often require a slow tapering process. Certain mental health drugs, like Effexor (venlafaxine), also require tapering to minimize the risk to the patient.
Patients may not yet be symptom-free
Another reason that doctors need to meet with patients when terminating a drug treatment regimen is to ensure that they have resolved the underlying medical condition or at least made the symptoms more manageable. In some cases, it may not be safe to continue a drug regimen indefinitely.
However, the patient may need to review other treatment options because they still have medical challenges. Physicians who abruptly end a prescription without checking with their patients first may do them a real disservice. A recurrence of their symptoms may completely reverse any progress that they made during treatment.
When patients have poor medical outcomes because doctors don’t follow appropriate procedures when prescribing medication, they may have grounds to pursue a medical malpractice lawsuit. Reviewing a doctor’s prescribing habits and the consequences of the abrupt termination of treatment with a skilled legal team can help people determine whether they have reason to take legal action.