When you visit a doctor, you trust them to give you an expert opinion about your health based on their years of experience and training. We rely on doctors’ and other medical team members’ advice because they have knowledge and information. Everyone knows that people make mistakes, but when a doctor or other healthcare professional fails to meet the accepted medical standard of care and misses an important diagnosis, it can become the basis for a legal claim.
If you are wondering whether you have a claim, a Fort Washington failure to diagnose lawyer can help. At Friedman Schuman Layser, our skilled medical malpractice attorneys take cases across the State of Pennsylvania to help injured people file personal injury lawsuits. To learn how we can help you get the compensation you deserve, schedule a consultation with our team.
Failure to diagnose is a form of medical malpractice that occurs when a doctor or other medical professional fails to correctly identify a patient’s health condition. Medical professionals sometimes miss the condition completely, and a misdiagnosis may put you at risk of receiving unnecessary treatments. Ultimately, even if the doctor eventually makes the correct diagnosis, there may still be a legal cause of action. Failure to diagnose can worsen health conditions, leading to:
Our attorneys in Fort Washington can investigate your case and determine whether there was a misdiagnosis of your health condition.
There are several elements to prove a failure to diagnose a medical condition. In general, your legal team must show that a doctor-patient relationship existed between you and the medical provider, which establishes that the provider had a duty to treat you and was responsible for your care. Next, they must show that the doctor did not meet the standard of care by failing to act as a reasonably competent provider would have acted in similar circumstances. This failure must have caused your condition to decline, become harder to treat, or lead to other health complications adversely affecting you.
It should be noted that not every mistaken diagnosis will meet all of these conditions. What matters is whether the healthcare professional failed to meet the standard of care a reasonable doctor would have provided in that situation. Indications that they fell below the standard of care include:
Our Fort Washington medical negligence lawyers can work to prove that you were under the care of a doctor who failed to diagnose and treat you promptly.
Health and legal problems are among the most stressful things people face. If you sustained an injury due to medical malpractice, you may be feeling uncertain and wondering who to go to for help.
At Friedman Schuman Layser, our experienced attorneys can review your case and discuss your options. A Fort Washington failure to diagnose lawyer from our team can assist you through each step of the case, regardless of whether you accept a settlement offer or decide to go to trial. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help.
