We currently provide pharmaceutical samples to many of our needy patients. We always document the "sampling" in the chart. However, I've been hearing a lot of talk about physician offices being held to the strict guidelines of a dispensing pharmacy when dispensing drugs in this manner. How careful do we need to be?
Question: We currently provide pharmaceutical samples to many of our needy patients. We always document the "sampling" in the chart. However, I've been hearing a lot of talk about physician offices being held to the strict guidelines of a dispensing pharmacy when dispensing drugs in this manner. How careful do we need to be?
Answer: I know of several practices that have stopped giving samples because they accidentally gave out expired samples and their patients contacted an "authority" - the state board of medicine, in one case. Another practice stopped keeping samples in-house after an employee sued over a sample that she took from the sample closet to which she had an adverse reaction.
Of course, the more cases there are like these, the more pressure there is to be regimented in the dispensing. Still, most practices continue to just distribute samples freely.
Of course, the process is up to you, but we would recommend the following:
My hope is that physicians can implement some limited procedures before adverse outcomes occur - and the system has to be dismantled.