Fill-Status Notifications

Meanwhile, fill-status notifications can be a valuable tool to help physicians follow up on their patients, says Boston lawyer Colin Zick, who practices with Foley Hoag LLP.
“Let’s say you prescribe medicine for high blood pressure and they stop taking it, because they don’t like it, it costs too much and they’re taking half as much as they’re supposed to, or they share it with their spouse,” he says. “Now you have this compliance issue. Fill-status notification doesn’t tell you how to solve that problem, but at least you know an issue is there and you can try to address it.”

But Zick wonders whether this tool can create a legal obligation for the doctor to follow up. “And if you undertake the follow-up, do you have the additional duty to keep following up? I don’t know the answer, because this is brand new.”

David Harlow, an attorney and health care consultant in Newton, says he doesn’t know the answer either.
“But I’m sure a plaintiff’s attorney would certainly bring it to a patient’s attention,” he says. “As with any tool, if it’s available and you don’t use it, it’ll be held against you one way or another.”  MMLR

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