Can I sue my doctor or health insurance company for not telling me that my bipolar medication made my birth control pills ineffective?

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Can I sue my doctor or health insurance company for not telling me that my bipolar medication made my birth control pills ineffective?

I became pregnant through no fault of my own.

Asked on September 17, 2015 under Malpractice Law, California

Answers:

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 8 years ago | Contributor

Your insurance company does not practice medicine and had no obligation to provide medical advice vis-a-vis your medication. It was not your doctor.
As to your doctor the issue is, whether he or she was neglignt, or unreasonably careless. Did the doctor who prescribe the birth control pills know about the bipolor medication, or vice versa? Only if a doctor knows about all the medication might he/she be liable for the drug interactions.
Do you know that the bipolar medication made the birth control bills ineffective--that is, has the causality been established, such as by another doctor? There must be medical evidence to support this conclusion.
If the biopolar medication did render the birth control bills ineffective, was this a known side-effect? If not, a doctor is not liable for knowing it. And even if known, if it was a very low probability event very small chance of happening, it's not necessarily the case that the doctor had to warn you or change prescriptions--it depends upon how likely or unlikely it was.
In short, you can't sue the insurer and only may or might be able to sue the doctor. You should speak with an experienced medical malpractice attoreney to discuss the situtation in greater detail.


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