You went to the doctor to get help. In doing so, you felt that you were doing the right thing — staying on top of your own health. However, due to a healthcare provider’s negligence you are far worse off than you were before you went in. What now? Doctors rarely admit wrongdoing, yet, you are left with a new injury or worsened condition, due to no fault of your own. A medical malpractice lawsuit may be an option.
A medical malpractice lawsuit holds negligent healthcare providers accountable for their actions. Not only can a successful medical malpractice lawsuit result in you obtaining significant compensation for your injuries, but it also encourages doctors to be more careful. In this way, medical malpractice cases help advance the medical profession.
Let’s face it, the media, politicians, and professional advocacy groups do everything they can to cast medical malpractice victims as “money hungry” patients looking for a windfall. At Console & Associates, P.C., we know that isn’t the case. Over the 25 years we’ve been handling medical malpractice lawsuits, we’ve seen first-hand the profound impact that instances of medical malpractice can have on our clients’ lives. That is why we are proud to represent patients who fell victim to a negligent provider’s care. If you have questions about bringing a medical malpractice case, give Console & Associates, P.C. a call to schedule a free consultation. During the consultation, we will answer your questions and provide you with an honest assessment of your case. While these cases can be extremely complicated, we will explain everything in clear, understandable terms so you can make the best decision for yourself and your family. And, if you decide to move forward with a medical malpractice lawsuit, we won’t bill you unless and until we can recover compensation on your behalf. That’s part of the “No Fee Promise” we make to each one of our clients.
Call us at (866) 778-5500 for a free, confidential case evaluation.
A patient should never have to worry about whether they can trust their doctors, but the truth is that medical negligence happens all too often. If you suspect that something went wrong during your treatment, the personal injury attorneys at Console & Associates, P.C. want to hear from you right away. We can help you determine if your injury was the result of medical negligence and, if so, start building your case today.
If you’re looking for answers about your care or searching for a solution to the financial problems caused by the medical error, we’re ready to assist you. Drawing upon our decades of experience handling medical malpractice claims, we can help you fight back, get justice, and get compensation for all that you have been through.
Medical malpractice cases can be complicated, but we’ll walk you through every step of the process so that pursuing a claim doesn’t feel overwhelming. Our team of attorneys has recovered numerous medical malpractice negligence settlements on behalf of our clients—and we never charge upfront fees for our services. You can trust us to handle your case with care and compassion and to have your back during this difficult time.
You don’t have to go through this alone! Call us today at (866) 778-5500, and let our medical malpractice attorneys be your advocates.
Officially, medical malpractice refers to medical care that deviates from the acceptable standard of care and causes physical harm and significant damages to a patient. The “standard of care” refers to the courses of action that the larger medical community would consider acceptable in a given circumstance, including the presentation of symptoms to diagnose and treatment plans to be formulated.
When a doctor or another healthcare provider makes a mistake that leaves a patient severely hurt—or takes their life, as happens hundreds of thousands of times every year—the patient or their family may have the grounds for a medical malpractice claim. Over our decades of practicing medical malpractice law, Console & Associates, P.C. has recovered compensation for victims of all types of medical negligence.
Each instance of medical malpractice is unique. Whether it’s a doctor failing to diagnose cancer, a surgeon botching a procedure, a nurse administering a dangerously wrong dosage of medication, or a home health aide mishandling medical equipment with disastrous consequences, each instance of medical malpractice has two things in common:
There’s a lot more that goes into distinguishing what is medical malpractice from what isn’t malpractice, not to mention determining what makes a claim successful and what strategies can increase the likelihood of securing maximum compensation. Once an experienced medical malpractice attorney gets to know the details of your legal matter, they can more fully evaluate your situation and help you understand what to expect from the legal process.
There are many potential forms of medical malpractice. Some examples of the causes of medical malpractice incidents include:
A prompt and accurate diagnosis is the first step to treating any medical issue. When the diagnosis is delayed or just plain wrong, the condition may progress to something more serious that is harder to treat effectively.
Doctors and other healthcare providers may make a few different kinds of erroneous diagnoses. A misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor arrives at the wrong diagnosis and, potentially, begins treatment for a condition you don’t actually have. In a missed diagnosis, a physician may dismiss your symptoms entirely and neglect to treat them. A delayed diagnosis occurs when, instead of diagnosing and treating your issue promptly, doctors delay reaching a diagnosis or formulating a treatment plan.
If a misdiagnosis, missed diagnosis, or delayed diagnosis occurs and allows the original medical condition to worsen substantially—and the failure to promptly and correctly diagnose the condition represents a departure from the accepted standard of care—then the patient may have the grounds for a medical malpractice claim.
The Emergency Department of a hospital is often a hectic place. Some of the chaos is unavoidable, as people arrive in search of unplanned medical assistance, often for urgent or even life-threatening conditions.
Despite the challenges, the physicians and other healthcare professionals who work in an Emergency Room must adhere to the standard of care. That means they can’t ignore complaints of symptoms that could indicate a serious problem or allow patients’ conditions to deteriorate while they wait to be seen. A misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis that would not have happened had the ER physicians and other providers adhered to the standard of care may also prompt a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Given how many medical examinations, diagnostic tests, treatments, and procedures are performed at hospitals, it makes sense that many of the instances of medical malpractice that occur happen at these facilities. Generally, a patient who is severely injured by medical malpractice can name in their claim or lawsuit any hospital staff or provider whose negligence contributed to the incident that injured them.
Although medical malpractice matters commonly involve physicians, other types of healthcare workers can also be named in medical negligence lawsuits. In addition to individual providers, the hospital itself may face legal liability for incidents of medical negligence that occurred in the facility and at the hands of its employees.
The use of anesthesia, drugs that induce unconsciousness and alleviate pain, is a crucial part of surgical procedures. Getting the right concoction and dosage of these drugs is important.
Too little anesthesia could leave a patient in the nightmarish situation of feeling everything during surgery but being unable to communicate, a traumatic experience that can understandably cause patients to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Too much anesthesia could, at an extreme level, lead to oxygen deprivation and brain damage, which may be fatal. Additionally, giving a patient the wrong medication—such as an anesthetic agent that they are allergic to—can also cause them to suffer serious harm.
Bad responses to anesthesia don’t always constitute malpractice. However, serious negative outcomes from anesthesia are rare when providers adhere to the standard of care, taking steps such as carefully examining the patient, taking their complete medical history, and monitoring their vital signs during the procedure and postoperative recovery.
A complication from surgery isn’t always grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Complications can occur even when the care a patient receives is completely in line with the standard of care, and some complications can have serious consequences even when healthcare practitioners provide the best possible care to manage them.
However, you can sue for the harm that results from postoperative complications in some situations. If the foreseeable complications were poorly managed by healthcare professionals—for example, if providers dismiss symptoms that indicate something more serious or fail to respond quickly and correctly to urgent conditions—then you might have a claim for compensation. Similarly, you may have a case if an investigation reveals that the complication didn’t just happen on its own but was instead caused by a mistake the surgeon made that constituted a deviation from the standard of care.
During pregnancy, labor, and childbirth, as well as the immediate period after birth, the health of both the mother and the child is in the hands of their care providers. Unfortunately, a mistake made during any of these periods could cause serious, lasting injuries to the child or the mother. Birth injuries like cerebral palsy are some of the most widely known medical malpractice disorders (although not all instances of cerebral palsy are necessarily a result of medical errors).
Injuries can also occur due to errors and malfunctions involving medical devices. If a medical device malfunctions or is defectively designed, you may have a products liability claim against the manufacturer rather than a medical malpractice lawsuit.
However, the reason medical devices fail to work correctly isn’t always dangerously defective design or manufacturing. Sometimes the medical device failures that leave patients seriously injured result from user error on the part of the healthcare worker. The more complex and necessary the medical equipment is—such as a ventilator that sustains the life of a patient who can’t breathe on their own—the greater the risk of a device error causing serious harm. Medical negligence lawsuits that involve mishandling medical equipment and devices may involve other parties besides physicians, including home health aides, nursing assistants, and nurses.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of all of the ways healthcare providers can deviate from the standard of care, to the detriment of their patients. If your situation doesn’t fit into one of these categories but you still suspect that medical negligence may have occurred, it’s time to speak to a medical malpractice law firm directly (at no charge) about your claim.
Malpractice claims arise out of medical negligence. Proving legal liability for injuries that result from what you allege was an incident of medical malpractice requires you to establish certain elements:
The medical malpractice compensation you receive for your injuries isn’t random. The amount of money you get through a legal settlement or a jury award is based on your damages, the legally recognizable harms and losses you suffered because of your injuries. Damages can be economic, which means that they are associated with a numerical cost that can be calculated or projected, or they can be noneconomic, which simply means that they don’t come with clear, quantifiable costs.
Some of the types of damages which medical malpractice lawsuit settlements should cover include:
The average settlement for medical malpractice claims is high—$329 565, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Some of the reasons medical malpractice claims tend to have such a high value are because the need for medical expert opinions to prove a deviation from the standard of care makes these claims expensive to pursue and because injuries must be serious to move forward with this type of personal injury claim.
For victims of medical malpractice and their families, free legal advice is available to help you understand your rights, get an
idea of what the lawsuit process entails, and find out whether you may have a claim. The medical malpractice attorneys at Console & Associates make every client our No Fee Promise. This includes:
By handling cases like yours on a contingency fee basis, we ensure that medical malpractice victims will have the chance to pursue justice, even if they don’t have the financial means to fund an expensive legal undertaking during the difficult time following a medical error.
Due to the requirement in many states that plaintiffs file an affidavit of merit or similar legal document in the course of pursuing a medical malpractice claim, you may not be able to move forward with your case without hiring an attorney to represent you.
However, even if your state doesn’t have these requirements, it’s unwise to pursue medical malpractice compensation without the help of a lawyer. These claims are extremely complex and require a thorough investigation and the services of expert witnesses in the relevant area of medical specialty.
Further, an experienced attorney is well-suited for calculating the full amount of your damages so that you can seek the full amount of money damages you deserve. In general, attorneys get their clients 3.5 times more money than unrepresented claimants secure for themselves, according to a study by the Insurance Research Council. Having an attorney will simplify and streamline your medical malpractice claim while putting you in a better position to recover maximum compensation.
For your free, no-risk legal consultation, call Console & Associates today at (866) 778-5500.
One factor that may dissuade the victims of medical malpractice and their families from pursuing the compensation they deserve is anxiety about potentially having to relive the whole ordeal at a trial. Contrary to popular belief, not all medical malpractice matters go to court. In fact, the vast majority—95 percent—of medical malpractice cases settle out of court before progressing to the trial stage, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There are benefits of avoiding a trial for all parties involved. For plaintiffs, taking a case to court is more costly in terms of filing fees, expert witness testimony, and other legal expenses. Even if you aren’t paying anything upfront to pursue your claim, you will have to spend more of your final payout to repay these costs. Having to wait for a court date can also delay the resolution of your claim. Of course, settling your claim prior to going to trial also helps you avoid the emotionally difficult experience of having to testify in court about the potentially traumatic experience you have been through and how it has affected your life. For the defendants and their insurance companies, settling a claim is often preferable to taking it to court because it reduces both litigation costs and the risk that they will have to pay you a huge jury award.
Still, there are times when medical malpractice attorneys must take lawsuits to court because this is the only way to get their clients the full amount of compensation they deserve. At Console & Associates, our attorneys’ reputation for conducting meticulous investigations, seeking out the opinions of respected expert witnesses in the field, calculating the full amount of our clients’ damages, and preparing every case as though it were going to trial has helped us get our clients the full medical malpractice settlements they deserve.
Medical malpractice is the third-leading cause of death in America, claiming 250,000 lives —and, by some estimates, as many as 440,000 patients’ lives—per year, according to CNBC News.
That’s not counting the massive number of nonfatal injuries that result from preventable medical errors—10 to 20 times as many of which are estimated to occur compared to lethal medical errors, according to the Journal of Patient Safety.
Most victims of medical errors and their families never get the compensation they deserve or the answers to their questions about why this happened. You and your family shouldn’t have to deal with this burden. Let the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Console & Associates, P.C. handle the legal claim for you, so you can focus on your recovery.
Ideally, you would like to put your case in the hands of top medical malpractice attorneys. The trouble is, choosing the right medical malpractice lawyer for your claim isn’t easy. What are the most important considerations to keep in mind when choosing an attorney for your claim?
