To understand what can be recognized as medical malpractice you must first understand the legal duties of healthcare providers (including doctors, nurses, hospitals and other caregivers and facilities), as they are all bound by a legal duty to provide safe, non-negligent care.
Medical malpractice is committed each time a healthcare professional refuses to provide care, fails to acquire informed consent from the patient (which in some cases is considered assault) or provides negligent care.
Negligence as Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice cases are generally made by proving negligent care on behalf of the healthcare provider, which includes the following elements:
·When a doctor or healthcare provider provides an unreasonable standard of care that a similar provider would under comparable circumstances.
·It is negligent if a healthcare professional causes you injury or illness while in your care by failing to provide the standard level of care for someone with your symptoms.
·Failure to provide the standard level of care for an illness, wherein that illness later causes further injury or illness.
There are a number of scenarios that are not grounds for a malpractice suit, including:
·Injury or illness that was accidentally caused by a healthcare provider while providing the standard level of care.
·Failure of a doctor to arrive at a proper diagnosis even though they have prescribed all the necessary tests and procedures.
·If a doctor causes harm while making a reasonable judgement call that other healthcare providers would likely have made as well.
Unfortunately, not every mistakes made by a healthcare provider is grounds for a malpractice case as a myriad of factors comes into play. Malpractice cases can be difficult to evaluate based on current legal frameworks which allow for varying levels of standard care from place-to-place and speciality-to-speciality.
Learn more about Suing for Medical Malpractice.
How to File a Medical Malpractice Claim
Every medical malpractice claim and case are different, and each must be assessed individually to determine its merits. If you feel like you have been victim of malpractice, call the malpractice experts here at Conte & Associates for a no-obligation case evaluation. We will closely examine the details of your case and then provide you with an action plan to move forward and file a claim.
