Do you need a medical malpractice lawyer?
Generally, there are two types of cases that medical malpractice lawyers in Miami will see. These are misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. These situations may arise after a medical condition, illness, or injury hasn’t been treated properly or it has been put off for too long anc can include:
- Delayed treatment
- No treatment at all
- Incorrect treatment
On the other hand, a simple mistake in a patient’s diagnosis is not enough to validly claim a medical malpractice lawsuit.
When you hire a medical malpractice attorney or even schedule a free consultation, they can sit and talk with you about your situation and let you know if they feel that you have valid lawsuit that can win in court.
Can your lawyer help you prove your medical negligence case due to diagnosing errors?
Due to state laws, it can be very difficult for doctors to be held responsible legally in diagnosing errors that lead to malpractice suits. In order to hold a doctor responsible, you (the patient) will be required to prove three different items which include:
- Proving a doctor-patient relationship existed. This means that you must show that you had a relationship with the doctor and that the doctor agreed to be hired to take care of you. For your lawsuit, you will have to prove that he doctor gave you medical advice or treatment. This can be proven with doctor’s appointments, prescriptions in your name, medical bills, etc.
- Proving the doctor was truly negligent and did not provide you with a treatment in a competent or skillful manner. Being unhappy with treatment doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a case. You will have to prove that they were negligent, un-skillful, and not careful in the treatment or diagnosis that they gave you.
- Proving that another doctor would not have given you the same treatment or diagnosis. A doctor is required to give you the best treatment that is possible and if they do not do this and you can prove it, you will possibly have a case.
- Prove the negligence of the doctor is what caused the injury to you. Chances are if you are seeing a doctor you may already be sick or injured. This is when you need to prove that the doctor’s treatment or diagnosis caused further injury or damage to your health.
In order to have a successful medical malpractice suit you must know that the doctor was negligent and that negligence is what injured you and you will need a lawyer with the most ethical approach to help you.
What type of damages can be used in your medical negligence case?
You will have to prove that the injury in the claim led to certain damages. The different types of damages that you can sue for are:
- Physical pain
- Mental distress
- Additional medical bills that arose from the damages
- Wages lost due to missing work because of the damages
Keep in mind that skilled and competent doctors can make mistakes even if they are providing reasonable care.
Your goal is to decide whether or not the doctor did act competently. When you are trying to determine if you have a medical negligence case based on diagnostic error, you will have to prove that another doctor would not have treated your condition the same way. This means that you have to prove two different things:
- The correct diagnosis was not included on the differential list completed at your appointment and another doctor, under the same circumstances, would have.
- The right diagnosis was included on the differential list but the doctor did not perform the correct tests or send you to a specialist in order to test their theory.
If you feel that you can prove these two items, then it may be in your best to contact a law firm in Miami that can help you proceed with your medical negligence case.
Can your medical negligence lawyer determine errors in diagnostic tests that were completed for your case?
If you had tests performed in order to properly diagnose your condition and you still received a misdiagnosis, chances are this happened because of inaccurate results. These inaccurate results could have come from the following:
- Tests from a lab-meaning the equipment that was used for the diagnostic testing was faulty.
- Results wrong-meaning that an error with the human staff occurred. This can happen due to contaminating the samples or mixing them up.
- Misuse of procedures and results-meaning completing a procedure that was improper, the test results were read wrong, or something was missed when reading an x-ray or the pathology slide.
If this occurred, the doctor may not be responsible for your medical negligence case but another person may be. In this case, you will need the help of a skilled lawyer to get to the bottom of what truly went wrong. If you are ready to move forward, schedule your free consultation today.