There are many different types of medical malpractice that can harm patients. Doctors make mistakes during the diagnostic process or while administering treatment. Medication errors are also relatively common.
Physicians can make mistakes during the prescribing process that cause significant harm to their patients. Sometimes, doctors recommend that patients use drugs for an unapproved purpose. This practice, known as off-label prescribing, may raise questions.
Is it malpractice to suggest that a patient use a drug for an unapproved purpose?
Off-label prescribing is common
Contrary to what people might presume, off-label prescribing is neither rare nor automatically inappropriate. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves medications for specific purposes after rigorous testing.
A medication approved by the FDA for one purpose is also likely safe for patients to use for other purposes. As such, off-label prescribing is not automatically a form of malpractice.
However, doctors do need to educate their patients about risks, success rates and potential side effects. They also need to ensure that the drug is not likely to interact with another medication that the patient takes.
Screening the patient for contraindications is of the utmost importance for their safety. Physicians also generally need to monitor the patient to see how they respond to treatment and to alter the dosage or the drug recommended if necessary.
In scenarios where doctors overlook key details that make a prescription drug unsafe for a patient, they may have committed medical malpractice. Reviewing what happened when a patient responded negatively to an off-label prescription can help patients determine if they experienced an actionable medication error.