- Jurisdiction
- Alabama
A major pharmacy chain in another state negligently added another persons opiate prescription to my family members account. the customer who the prescription belonged to, had the same first/last name and birthdate as my relative, and is a long time resident of the town where he filled his precription.
(a place my relative and I had never even been to in our lives, ) — pharmacy pulled up wrong account which wouldn't have happened if they checked this individuals ID, address or SSN# like I believe they're supposed to?
Our back story and the ongoing nightmare:
We recently moved to AL., far from where we had been living & receiving excellent medical care for serious illnesses for the last 8 years. We've only been seeing a nearby doctor in AL for a couple months since we moved here. During our last visit, our new doctor notices on my relatives records the above mentioned opiates from the out of state pharmacy 200 miles away, and we were incredulous, obviously having no idea where it came from at the time, my relative hadn't had any opiates filled in over 5 years,, but doctor sounds supicious like they didn't believe relatives denials, and kept trying to get us to admit it. We beg them to call us if they find out anything, wondering out loud if it could be identity theft, assuring them up and down that we had no idea what was going on.
2 weeks later, doctors office finally called us and told us "pharmacy told us they had seen (my relative) on security camera, you're both lying, (very rude and immature) you and family member are permanently dismissed from this office, even implying there could be legal trouble for you" (Our first logical reaction after getting off the phone: "This pharmacy doesn't know my relative or what he looks like, how ridiculous")
(which puts us without a doctor to continue prescriptions, etc) — My relative, shaking and near tears, almost having a panic attack at this point, thinks maybe someone stole their identity. He calls this out of state pharmacy explaining situation, too late to head to copy center, the next morning he drives 30 miles to fax them a photo ID and blown up photo of himself, at which point the pharmacy start to realize their mistake, track down the individual who picked up the prescription and had him come back to pharmacy with his ID to clear up the situation, which he did according to the pharmacist.
Pharmacy then calls our doctor office to explain their mistake, ATTEMPTING to anyway - but the office wouldn't listen to the pharmacist and was argumentative .. (which is how pharmacist explained it to us, claiming there's nothing else they can do, profusely apologetical though) . (I assume our doctors office just wanted to sweep it under the rug at this point, especially after the horrible, shameful way they had treated us, too embarassed to face us after that — they are rather unprofessional in other ways we've noticed, but we've always kept it to ourselves and been respectful. Been on time to appointments, and courteous.
we have been losing sleep and are feeling extremely vulnerable after all this went down. relative is elderly. He was starting his golden years at his dream retirement home on a lake and its turned into a nightmare lately. worried that if doctors are so reactionary, cold and carless around here - maybe the next one will be too. (the only silver lining is we were able to get an appointment with another doctor before our medicine runs out) but we're worried, as the last doctors office maintains we're still dismissed because the prescription still shows up on relatives record. (Not sure if this is true or not, I've been finding red flags about this doctor since researching them, trying to find out why they would be so careless throwing us under the bus like this. they do not come off as honorable/honest people to me. ( while this may not be relevant, there seems to be an unusual number of lawsuits tied to this doctor, and when I look on various professional reputation sites, they have very low rep score, Also found doctor talk/support forums where the doctor was publicly posting unprofessional details about their personal life some years ago , conspiritorial sounding outcry over their parental rights being legally revoked by the state.)
Please, if you possibly can, please tell us what recourse we might have. I'm in tears everytime I recount this as I've always had a wonderful relationship with all my doctors and I've never felt so vulnerable in my life. My depression and anxiety is coming back to haunt me after many years remission .. I've spent close to 3-4 months in hospitals in the last 8 years with a serious and rare disease that made it where couldn't eat — losing over 80 pounds as a result (fed liquid meals by feeding tubes for over a year) , that and surgery helped bring back some of the weight — I'm still dealing with immensely painful spasms when I don't have my medicines, (occasionally even when I do) - they get so bad that I can't swallow , so it's like living through PTSD right now, worrying about not being able to find an honorable doctor in time and going without my meds or experiencing this again.
Thank you so very much if you have any answers or suggestions. (p.s. My relative and I have never in our lives filed suit against anyone but we both agree that this just isn't right , we've suffered far too much over the incompetence of others — we did nothing wrong (other than perhaps not doing a thorough enough background check on this doctor when we first moved here) —
(a place my relative and I had never even been to in our lives, ) — pharmacy pulled up wrong account which wouldn't have happened if they checked this individuals ID, address or SSN# like I believe they're supposed to?
Our back story and the ongoing nightmare:
We recently moved to AL., far from where we had been living & receiving excellent medical care for serious illnesses for the last 8 years. We've only been seeing a nearby doctor in AL for a couple months since we moved here. During our last visit, our new doctor notices on my relatives records the above mentioned opiates from the out of state pharmacy 200 miles away, and we were incredulous, obviously having no idea where it came from at the time, my relative hadn't had any opiates filled in over 5 years,, but doctor sounds supicious like they didn't believe relatives denials, and kept trying to get us to admit it. We beg them to call us if they find out anything, wondering out loud if it could be identity theft, assuring them up and down that we had no idea what was going on.
2 weeks later, doctors office finally called us and told us "pharmacy told us they had seen (my relative) on security camera, you're both lying, (very rude and immature) you and family member are permanently dismissed from this office, even implying there could be legal trouble for you" (Our first logical reaction after getting off the phone: "This pharmacy doesn't know my relative or what he looks like, how ridiculous")
(which puts us without a doctor to continue prescriptions, etc) — My relative, shaking and near tears, almost having a panic attack at this point, thinks maybe someone stole their identity. He calls this out of state pharmacy explaining situation, too late to head to copy center, the next morning he drives 30 miles to fax them a photo ID and blown up photo of himself, at which point the pharmacy start to realize their mistake, track down the individual who picked up the prescription and had him come back to pharmacy with his ID to clear up the situation, which he did according to the pharmacist.
Pharmacy then calls our doctor office to explain their mistake, ATTEMPTING to anyway - but the office wouldn't listen to the pharmacist and was argumentative .. (which is how pharmacist explained it to us, claiming there's nothing else they can do, profusely apologetical though) . (I assume our doctors office just wanted to sweep it under the rug at this point, especially after the horrible, shameful way they had treated us, too embarassed to face us after that — they are rather unprofessional in other ways we've noticed, but we've always kept it to ourselves and been respectful. Been on time to appointments, and courteous.
we have been losing sleep and are feeling extremely vulnerable after all this went down. relative is elderly. He was starting his golden years at his dream retirement home on a lake and its turned into a nightmare lately. worried that if doctors are so reactionary, cold and carless around here - maybe the next one will be too. (the only silver lining is we were able to get an appointment with another doctor before our medicine runs out) but we're worried, as the last doctors office maintains we're still dismissed because the prescription still shows up on relatives record. (Not sure if this is true or not, I've been finding red flags about this doctor since researching them, trying to find out why they would be so careless throwing us under the bus like this. they do not come off as honorable/honest people to me. ( while this may not be relevant, there seems to be an unusual number of lawsuits tied to this doctor, and when I look on various professional reputation sites, they have very low rep score, Also found doctor talk/support forums where the doctor was publicly posting unprofessional details about their personal life some years ago , conspiritorial sounding outcry over their parental rights being legally revoked by the state.)
Please, if you possibly can, please tell us what recourse we might have. I'm in tears everytime I recount this as I've always had a wonderful relationship with all my doctors and I've never felt so vulnerable in my life. My depression and anxiety is coming back to haunt me after many years remission .. I've spent close to 3-4 months in hospitals in the last 8 years with a serious and rare disease that made it where couldn't eat — losing over 80 pounds as a result (fed liquid meals by feeding tubes for over a year) , that and surgery helped bring back some of the weight — I'm still dealing with immensely painful spasms when I don't have my medicines, (occasionally even when I do) - they get so bad that I can't swallow , so it's like living through PTSD right now, worrying about not being able to find an honorable doctor in time and going without my meds or experiencing this again.
Thank you so very much if you have any answers or suggestions. (p.s. My relative and I have never in our lives filed suit against anyone but we both agree that this just isn't right , we've suffered far too much over the incompetence of others — we did nothing wrong (other than perhaps not doing a thorough enough background check on this doctor when we first moved here) —
