CURES is an online system to track the prescriptions written to patients across California.

It’s meant to raise red flags when patients obtain more of a prescription drug than is safe. It’s also meant to help doctors treat drug rehab patients without providing them too much of one medication.

Facilities can end up liable when preventable and catchable mistakes in the system cause injury or death for a rehab patient. Families of victims are able to sue.

What Does CURES Do?

The Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES) is a database of all prescriptions dispensed in California. Every time anyone receives a prescribed medicine, it’s recorded under their CURES file.

This covers all Schedule II, Schedule III, Schedule IV, and Schedule V controlled substance prescriptions dispensed in California.

Pharmacies and clinics will often be the entities dropping in the data. Doctors, nurses, and professional counselors who dispense drugs directly would also be responsible for entering the information.

It’s a way to track drug abuse. It’s a system that protects patients and stops criminal abuse of prescription drugs. Patients are monitored and held accountable when they receive multiple prescriptions of the same drug from different doctors.

It’s also a way for healthcare providers to offer safer care. They have an easily accessible record of what the patient has taken before and what they are currently being treated with.

This information is crucial as drug rehab clinicians assess and intake patients, form detox plans, and treat withdrawal. The prescription data can literally make the difference between life and death.

CURES Database Drug Rehab Negligence

Unfortunately, any system that relies on human input will experience issues. Information in the CURES system can be entered incorrectly, such as a mistyped prescription name or when it’s entered under the wrong patient.

Carelessness also often plays a part. A drug rehab facility can make the mistake. Staff members can fail to take the time to catch a mistake by someone else.

These are a few of the negligent mistakes that can leave a drug rehab facility liable for a CURES error and accident:

• Failure to Catch Wrong I-D: Patients with similar names and from the same region can have information swapped. Misidentified patients can end up being treated for someone else’s needs. It’s a problem that a careful staff would catch.
• Incorrect Prescription Data: Clinical staff can prescribe a medicine that the patient is already on, leading to a drug overdose. This can happen when other facilities don’t enter the prescription information correctly, including when a patient stopped taking a certain prescription.
• Compromised Withdrawal Treatment: Staff may not know about all of the prescriptions a patient has received, leading to an incorrect and dangerous withdrawal treatment plan.
• Refused prescriptions: Staff can refuse to administer prescription drugs based on false information in the patient’s CURES file. Staff members who don’t double-check and confirm the facts can withhold important medications from patients.
• Premature discharge: Based on out-of-date CURES data, staff members can also push for a premature discharge. This can put patients who aren’t fully recovered in extreme danger.
• Patient Suffering: Patients can be denied certain withdrawal medications because of faulty CURES records. Many of these mistakes in recordkeeping can be easily caught by staff members who are paying attention.
• Falsifying CURES Data: Staff members can also be guilty of entering false data. They might mark down a prescription drug that wasn’t administered just to hide the fact that they missed a dosage.
• Failure to Report a Discrepancy: Facilities that don’t report the problems found in a CURES report increase the chances a patient has trouble at the next rehab clinic they may check into.

These and other mistakes can leave facilities liable for a patient injury or tragic death. They may even leave the rehab centers the patient has checked into in the past financially responsible. A skilled California Rehab Facility Wrongful Death Lawyer helps families investigate these mistakes and collect the evidence needed to hold a rehab facility liable when a patient is allowed to die.

Drug Treatment Medications on CURES

Patients can enter drug treatment centers battling issues with substances like Fentanyl, alcohol, and cocaine.

At times, the best way to help patients safely manage withdrawal and ease their suffering is through the use of prescription treatments.

That might include these medicines and others:

NARCAN: This is a non-addictive treatment for an Opioid overdose. It’s generally safe to administer, even to people not experiencing an Opioid overdose. A prescription isn’t usually needed to get Naloxone (NARCAN is the brand name). NARCAN dispensing isn’t recorded on CURES.

METHADONE: This is used to treat patients recovering from Opioid addiction. It reduces cravings and helps with withdrawal symptoms. It contains man-made opioids and is classified as a Schedule II drug. Its use is tracked in California’s CURES system.

BENZODIAZPINES: Benzo drugs like Valium can be used to treat seizures during withdrawal. They also help with Delirium Tremens for patients experiencing alcohol withdrawal. Benzos are generally classified as Schedule IV drugs and are reported to CURES.

NALTREXONE: Used to help Substance Use Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorder patients after withdrawal. Naltrexone is not a controlled substance. Its use is not tracked in the CURES database.

If Your Loved One Came to Harm in a California Rehab Contact Us

Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to all family members of victims hurt or allowed to die in rehab centers.

It’s a no-risk, no-obligation way to find out what a wrongful death case would be worth and how to hold a negligent California drug treatment program fully responsible.

Remember, there are no upfront costs to you and your family if you need to hire a lawyer. We aren’t paid unless we win your case for you. Then our fee comes out of the settlement check a negligent recovery business must write.