Watch Your Meds

Medication errors are rising-but these simple steps can help keep you safe 
BY BETH HOWARD

 Swamped Stores:

PREVENTION: Fill your prescriptions when the pharmacy isn't at its busiest,Conry advises. "Ask the pharmacy what the best time is," she says. Or use the drugstore's automated refill system, allowing the staff plenty of time to process your prescription. And try to avoid filling a prescription the first week of the month. Deaths due to medication errors rise 25 percent above normal early in the month, researchers at the University of California at San Diego found. Study author David P. Phillips, Ph.D., a UCSD sociologist, believes this is because people tend to fill their prescriptions not long after receiving Social Security and other government-assistance checks, and the sheer number of prescriptions filled then is greatest.