If you or a loved one have been the victim of a misdiagnosis, you may want to hire a medical malpractice attorney.
Most people visit the doctor to discover the cause of their illness. Unfortunately, many times patients are misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. As a result, the patient’s untreated condition can worsen and become long-term, leading to death. If you or a loved one have been the victim of a misdiagnosis, you may want to hire a medical malpractice attorney to bring a compensation claim. Keep reading to learn more about when failing to diagnose a condition becomes medical malpractice.
What is Failure to Diagnose?
Doctors are human and make mistakes, not all of which qualify as medical malpractice. Not every failure to diagnose occurs because of something the doctor did wrong. Many different causes can result in a doctor not coming up with a diagnosis. While the doctor has a responsibility to help improve your health, you also have a responsibility to give the doctor all the information required to make a diagnosis. If you visit your doctor and don’t tell them you were having chest pains earlier, it’s not entirely their fault if they don’t diagnose you with heart disease. Also, if your doctor orders the correct tests and takes all the correct measures and a condition goes unnoticed, it’s not necessarily medical malpractice. Something else has to occur for it to go from a reasonable failure to diagnose to medical malpractice.
Failure to Diagnose Due to Negligence
Like in a car accident, there has to be an element of negligence for a doctor to be guilty of medical malpractice. In addition to negligence, there also has to be an injury – a patient must be hurt or develop a serious medical condition due to the doctor’s lack of diagnosis. This usually means a doctor didn’t take steps that a reasonable and similarly trained medical professional would take. In these cases, the doctor not only did not uphold their standard duty of care but also caused patients harm and possibly death. In cases like this, a doctor’s failure to diagnose is more than a reasonable missed diagnosis – it’s medical malpractice.
Seeking Compensation for a Misdiagnosis
The consequences of a misdiagnosis, or no diagnosis at all, significantly impact your health. Patients often do not seek treatment without a proper diagnosis, which can worsen their condition. This is especially true with cancer and other diseases in which early treatment is critical. Some medical conditions are mistaken for other issues or missed entirely due to misinterpreting lab results, failing to administer the correct tests based on symptoms, failing to take the patient’s medical history into account, or a lack of appropriate follow-up tests.
Navigating a medical malpractice case is difficult. Proving the doctor was neglectful and failed to diagnose you is a lot of work for an experienced lawyer, let alone the patient. Be sure to seek help from a professional attorney with experience handling failure-to-diagnose cases. Contact the Snyder Law Group today to learn more.
Contact The Snyder Law Group Today
The Snyder Law Group, LLC, proudly represents clients throughout Maryland and Washington, D.C. Our experienced Baltimore attorneys understand the frustration that comes with an insurance company, medical professional, or other party that refuses to accept liability for negligent or reckless behavior. You can take heart in knowing there are talented and experienced lawyers ready to work for you. We are experienced in handling personal injury claims of medical malpractice or injury resulting from serious car and truck accidents, and have secured hundreds of millions in verdicts and settlements. Please visit our website, www.410thefirm.com, or call us at 410-843-3476, for more information. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.