Prescription Mix-Up On Miami Beach Concerns Patient
MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) -- Prescription mix-ups cost the health care system 2 billion dollars a year. Every year thousands of people die because they were given the wrong prescription and as the number of prescriptions increase and the number of pharmacists decrease which makes the problem just get worse.
One Miami Beach woman experienced the problem first hand when she reached for her prescription in the middle of the night and realized it wasn't hers.
Tatiana Alder was recently diagnosed with asthma. She's uses an inhaler so she can breathe.
"I went to CVS to get my inhaler," explained Tatiana. She left her prescription in the bag and put it near her bed. "The next day during the night I had an attack during the night. I reached to get the inhaler and then when I opened it I got a packet that supposed to go to another person."
She woke up her husband Nate.
"I went to get the bag with the medication in there from the pharmacy, and instead of an inhaler we find a bottle of pills with somebody else's name on it," exclaimed Nate who was terrified.
Finding the miscellaneous pills instead of her inhaler made him furious. Tatiana was gasping for air.
"I was like okay, I need to breath and I don't have my medication what do I need to do," said Tatiana.
Nate called the pharmacy and asked them to bring over the right medication. They said they don't offer that service.
Hours later, the Adlers were able to get the inhaler from a different location and Tatiana was okay.
"Thankfully she's ok, but I was terrified for my life at that point," her husband said.
CBS4 News contacted the CVS on Harding in Surfside just south of the shops at Bal Harbor. They admitted to the mistake and offered this statement:
"The health and safety of our customers is our number one priority and we sincerely apologize for giving Mrs. Alder a prescription that did not belong to her. When we were alerted to this mistake our pharmacist contacted her immediately to apologize, check on her health condition, and make arrangements for her to receive a new asthma inhaler, free of charge."
"My husband was the one who called them up. They didn't call because they realized anything," said Tatiana.
The statement goes on to say: "It appears that our procedures to verify the identity of a patient before dispensing their prescription were not properly followed during the checkout process we have followed up with our staff to prevent this from happening again."
As of last year the state of Florida put new measures in place to require more training of pharmacy technicians and more procedures to prevent mix ups yet the standards are not an assurance and the problem is not just in Florida. Just last month the State Attorneys general office in New Jersey began a preliminary investigation into a CVS pharmacy in that state. Reports show kids who were suppose to get fluoride pills were given tamoxifen pills to treat breast cancer.
These serious mix ups with serious consequences troubled Tatiana.
"That's pretty scary they make mistakes like that."
The Alders hope everyone will learn to double check their prescriptions when they pick them up. As far as the CVS on Harding is concerned, the Adlers said they won't use that pharmacy anymore.
