Professional negligence: when practice goes wrong.
OBJECTIVE: To review the practice and legal principles of negligence law. CASE SUMMARY: An illustrative, fictional case is presented, based in part on facts gleaned from actual case law. A respected pharmacist, faced with the financial loss of his business, decided to engage in 2 creative but unethical schemes to increase his profit margin. In doing so, he violated federal Medicare law and placed a number of the patients who used his services at significant risk for medical complications. DISCUSSION: Negligence law has evolved over the past 30 years in a manner that significantly increases the liability of the practicing pharmacist for both ordinary negligence actions and criminal negligence actions. In addition, the past decade has seen the expansion of Medicare Fraud and Abuse law such that it now represents an increasingly high risk area for every medical service provider, including the pharmacist. CONCLUSIONS: Professional practice in the US is highly regulated, governed by both case law and statutory law. Every practicing pharmacist should be aware of the law that governs his or her behavior to avoid both civil and criminal liability.