What You Need To Know About Starting A Medical Malpractice Claim

Medical practitioners from surgeons to psychiatrists have a duty towards patients.

You deserve only the highest quality of care from an experienced practitioner. However, your relationship with a medical practitioner won’t always go smoothly. It’s part of a doctor’s responsibility to safeguard your well-being, but what happens if they have misdiagnosed your illness or botched a surgical procedure? Filing a medical malpractice claim against your practitioner would be the only road to take.

Why Start A Medical Malpractice Claim?

As a patient, you are well within your right to demand compensation and have the practitioner make necessary corrections. You could end up losing more money to medical and hospital bills. That’s not to mention the long-term physical, psychological, and social effects you will have to bear, especially if the malpractice resulted in brain injury.

Not all medical malpractice claims end up favoring the victims. Without knowing your way around the law, there’s a good chance for the other side to undervalue your losses and get away with only a slap on the wrist. If you need to know what it takes to launch a successful medical malpractice claim, you don’t have to look far for a nifty guide. Check out this one below:

1. Reach Out To The Other Side

Before filing your claim, you need to know the nature of the medical error you sustained. This is true if you underwent a major operation such as delivering a child or an amputation. In this case, the practitioner that handled you will need to provide a detailed explanation about what led to the error. At this point, you will need to ask for options for correcting their mistakes.

You may undergo corrective surgery free of charge, but if the issue is impossible to resolve, you may have to demand fair compensation. Filing a medical malpractice claim that reflects your pain and suffering will help you recover physically and financially.

2. Establish A Breach In The Duty Of Care

After reaching out to the other side, you will need to determine if the issue qualifies as a medical malpractice case.  The most important concept you will need to understand here is negligence.

Doctors are tasked with providing high levels of care in diagnosing and treating your condition. More so, they swear by the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm to their patients, whether directly or indirectly. Acting negligently is considered a breach of the oath and therefore warrants disciplinary action.

Negligence takes the form of performing below the standards of care and failing to act in a way that would have prevented malpractice. Performing surgery on the wrong site or failing to provide aftercare services are a few examples. When determining if your doctor performed negligently, you will need to ask if the problem was avoidable or not. You should also check if your doctor performed within reasonable standards.

3. Get A Seasoned Personal Injury Lawyer

It would be difficult to handle a medical malpractice claim on your own. Without a professional by your side, you could end up looking for evidence in the wrong places. You might also be making decisions that will cost you time and money. Ultimately, these decisions will lead to compensation that’s below what you hope for.

You could also face an uphill battle if the other side insists that it did not do anything wrong. There is no other way to go but to hire a personal injury lawyer with experience in handling the kind of malpractice situation you are facing.

When looking around for an attorney, search locally for a law practice that has a positive track record in a specific field. For instance, if you are in Georgia find a Woodstock personal injury lawyer that specializes in wrongful death if the other side’s negligence caused the death of a loved one. Quality legal representation makes all the difference, so make sure you have recruited an attorney who will give you every penny you are entitled to.

4. Follow A Timeframe

Much like taking any other legal action, starting a medical malpractice claim is subject to the statute of limitations that governs the state where the malpractice took place. You only have two years and six months to file your claim in most states. Failing to reach the deadline would mean waiving your legal right to file a claim.

If you feel you have a strong case against the professional or institution that committed malpractice, you might as well act swiftly in forming your legal team and gathering evidence to establish negligence.  Each time you delay the process, you only prolong your suffering and spend more money to treat injuries or conditions that shouldn’t have persisted in the first place.

5. Build Your Case And Talk To Other Experts

Your personal injury lawyer will start to look for any piece of evidence proving that your doctor failed to provide a reasonable standard of care. These will include receipts, photos of the injuries you sustained, and your past medical records. It’s possible that your doctor was aware of pre-existing conditions but chose to ignore them.

Along with hard evidence of malpractice, you will also need to consult another medical specialist who can weigh in on the issue. Their opinion is vital in proving that the issue was avoidable and increasing the value of compensation you will be receiving in the end.

The entire process could take months, so be patient and always ask for updates and advice from your lawyer. You should also refrain from posting on social media. The other side will also try to disprove your claims by checking your online activity for self-incriminating posts.

6. Aim To Settle Rather Than Go To Trial

It will take a long time before your claim bears any fruit. Throughout the process, the other side may reach out and offer to negotiate a settlement. This is a better option than letting the case go into an exhaustive trial.

The best scenario is that the other side will accept your demands. This happens more often, but even so, you still need to prepare in case your compensation is constantly undervalued. It’s only when this happens that you can take the issue to court where you could end up winning a compensation package that’s significantly better than your initial estimate.

As a patient, filing a malpractice claim will spare you from the financial and physical hardships that await you if you won’t.