Have you ever reached into your medicine cabinet and forgot what that prescription is for?

Pharmacists say it happens all the time.

TODAY’S TMJ4’s Courtny Gerrish shows us how to end the confusion.

Leading pharmacy groups are now calling for label changes to end any confusion.

What does the medical community think?

Nancie Sturges takes a variety of different medications to help her stay healthy. She keeps a close eye on what her parents use too.

"Each of them take their own myriad of medications,” Sturges said.

With nearly a dozen different prescriptions to manage, Sturges admits it can get overwhelming.

To help ease that confusion, pharmacy groups are calling for label changes. They want states to make it mandatory that "indication for use" be printed on all prescription labels.

"If a patient has high blood pressure, they go to their doctor, receive a prescription for that indication, or for that use, and then, when they receive the medication from the pharmacist, the prescription label would say, 'take this medication for high blood pressure,’” Carmen Catizone from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy said.

Patients may forget what a medicine is for, or they could get confused because there are dozens of drugs with similar names but very different uses. For instance, imagine if a patient ends up with the narcotic oxycodone instead of the bladder medication oxybutynin.

But, if a physician includes the indication…

"It would help the pharmacist know more about what the patient's condition was and what the medication should be and it would avoid any error,” Catizone said.

The American Medical Association agrees having the indication listed is a good thing, but they argue it should be optional. The concern: patient confidentiality, especially in sensitive medical cases.

"I may not want my spouse to know what I’m being treated for or I may have some other people living in my home and it's none of their business,” Dr. Edward Langston from the American Medical Association said.

There are no guidelines for the wording of 'indication of use' on labels. It's up to each physician to decide what the labels will say.