Medical Malpractice: How Do You Know?

Medical malpractice or medical negligence is when your health care provider falls below the accepted standard of practice, sometimes resulting in injury or death, and often resulting in error of some type. Hundreds of thousands of people are killed each year due to medical errors by their trusted physicians, and hospital costs are exorbitant for these types of cases. In some situations, a medical error or malpractice is easy to determine—the error is blatant and the outcome is devastating. Instances such as removing the wrong limb, or mixing up a chart. In other cases, the error may not be so forthright—such as prescribing a drug that over time causes ill effects; or providing the wrong diagnosis, which does not surface until much later.

In any of the scenarios above, taking matters into your own hands may not be the best course of action if you really want to build a case for malpractice. In a lawsuit, you’ll have to establish several elements of a case including what legal duty existed, what duty was breached, what was caused as a result of that breach, and what type of damages are due. Unless you have a personal injury law degree and are practicing personal injury law yourself, your case is best handled in the hands of competent Manhattan law firm with years of experienced in this area.

A key element that an attorney considers in medical malpractice cases is standard of care. Standard of care refers to what is the acceptable practice used by other physicians and experts in that region. Environmental and regional conditions vary from state to state, and what may apply to a 40-year-old woman in Arizona maybe not apply to someone who is 15 or 80 years of age in the midwest or east coast. Therefore, proving the intricacies of standard of care can be difficult and complex without someone who has an extended professional background to assist you. You also may need to prove that the mistake caused further harm, and not just the immediate harm. How do you do that? You will clearly need expert testimony on your side to prove this type of case.

Given the small bits of information above, it’s not difficult to reason that a medical malpractice case is difficult and not to be tackled alone. Here are some items and thoughts you want to have on hand when meeting with your attorney who will help you settle your case:

• All medical records and documentation of prescriptions and diagnosis
• Recollections of when you first started feeling as though you had a misdiagnosis or that something was “not right”
• Testimony from others who will account for you that you were misdiagnosed
• Expenses and copies of medical bills and coverage’s

Those are a few of the items that will be helpful in your case. If you feel you have a medical misdiagnosis, malpractice, or medical error case on your hands, finding resolution can be a long road without the help of a New York law firm who is renowned for malpractice settlements. Put your trust in the hands of someone who can help you settle quickly and effectively.