LEGAL CLAIMS INCREASE WITH RISING OPIOID USE
It is now well known that opioid painkiller abuse has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. In fact, it has become so prevalent that opioid analgesics are involved in more medical-malpractice claims related to drug errors than any other class of drugs, according to Coverys, a medical liability insurer that analyzed over 10,000 malpractice claims from 2012 – 2016.
Opioids made up only 5% of prescription drugs dispensed in 2016. Surprisingly, despite these low statistics, opioids are involved in twenty-four percent of medication-related legal claims.
According to Robert Hanscom, Vice President of Business Analytics at Coverys, most of these claims involve overdoses or claimants who allegedly became addicted to opioids. In an interview with Medscape Medical News, Hanscom said, “Physicians continue to renew prescriptions without monitoring patients to see if they are getting better or not, if there were any changes in their clinical status.”
Opioid manufacturers and distributers are being sued by cities and counties in states which claim to be suffering a “public health safety crisis.” Some pharmacy chains, such as Walmart, CVS and Walgreens have been named in lawsuits and investigations. And of course, doctors themselves are increasingly being held accountable. For example:
- A Texas doctor faces charges of illegally distributing opioids in connection with at least seven deaths, according to an indictment that was unsealed last year.
- In mid-2017, an Oklahoma doctor was charged with five counts of second-degree murder for prescribing what Attorney General Mike Hunter described as “horrifyingly excessive” amounts of potent drugs.
- In 2015, Los Angeles doctor Hsiu-Ying Tseng was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for overprescribing opioids.
- In 2016, a St. Louis jury awarded $17.6 million in damages in a suit, where $1.4 million was awarded to the plaintiff, $1.2 was awarded to his estranged wife and the remaining $15 million was awarded as punitive damages. The suit alleged over-prescription by a doctor who prescribed to the plaintiff 37,000 narcotic pain pills over four years, increasing the plaintiff’s medication during that time from 49 milligrams per day to over 1,155 milligrams per day, which is far in excess of the Center for Disease Control’s recommendation of no more than 100 milligrams per day.
Pressure on prescribing doctors will surely continue to mount. According to Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Melvin Patterson, a 20 year DEA agent, “There was a reluctance to prosecute doctors” early in his career. This has changed as the opioid epidemic becomes a high DEA priority. Patterson said that it is much easier to push these investigations forward than before. “That’s been prosecuted all over the country right now. That’s how far we have come.”
There are a variety of expert witnesses that can be helpful when handling an opioid related medical malpractice case. For example, they may shed light on opioid chemical structures, the effect opioids can have on the human body when taken properly or improperly, or even appropriate disclosures needed when prescribing opioid medications. Addiction specialists, pharmacists, pain management doctors, chemists, toxicologists and failure to warn experts each have a unique understanding and perspective about opioids that can be useful to establish or clarify issues arising in opioid use malpractice cases.
