What Exactly Does a Medical Malpractice Attorney Do?
Between the years 2006 and 2016, there were more than 140,000 payments made in relation to medical malpractice. This resulted in more than 400,000 adverse actions that required more than sixty thousand practitioners to seek reinstatement.
Nobody wants to find themselves involved in a medical malpractice case. Even if you win a case, that likely means that you ended up losing in some other way. But this is why medical malpractice attorneys are so useful.
What exactly is a medical malpractice lawyer? What do they do? And what is medical malpractice, anyway?
We’re glad you asked. So if you are interested in learning more, then keep on reading and we will take you through everything that you need to know!
What Is Medical Malpractice?
Before we can get into what a medical malpractice attorney is, we first need to understand what medical malpractice is. In order for someone to be considered medical malpractice, it needs to meet certain kind of criteria.
A Violation of the Standard of Care
There are certain medical standards that are recognized by the profession as being acceptable medical treatment. The law acknowledges that this treatment consists of treatment by reasonably careful health care providers.
This is referred to as the standard of care. A patient has the right to expect that health care providers are going to deliver care that’s consistent with these standards. If it’s decided that the standard of care isn’t meant, then the provider can be considered negligent.
An Injury Was Caused By the Negligence
In order for your medical malpractice complaint to be legitimate, it’s not enough that a health care provider only violated the standard of care. As a patient, you also need to prove that you sustained an injury that wouldn’t have happened if there wasn’t negligence.
Simply having a negative outcome on its own is not enough to be considered malpractice. You need to prove, as the patient, that the negligence by your doctor caused your injury. If the negligence didn’t cause the injury, or there simply wasn’t any kind of injury, then you don’t have a medical malpractice case.
The Injury Resulted in Significant Damages
It costs a lot of money to litigate a medical malpractice lawsuit. These cases usually have testimonies from multiple medical experts and there is a lot of time spent on deposition testimony.
If your case is going to be worth pursuing, then you’ll need to show that there were significant damages that resulted from an injury that you sustained because of your doctor’s medical negligence.
If the damages aren’t that bad, then the cost of pursuing the lawsuit might cost you more than your eventual recovery. In order to pursue a medical malpractice lawsuit, you will have to show that the injury resulted in:
- significant past and future medical bills
- hardship and suffering
- unusual pain
- loss of income
Sustaining a disability can also warrant a medical malpractice suit.
Examples of Medical Malpractice
There are all kinds of medical malpractice. Let’s go over some common examples that might lead to a case:
- Failure to recognize symptoms
- Failure to order proper testing
- Disregarding or not taking appropriate patient history
- Premature discharge
- Poor follow-up or aftercare
- Improper medication or dosage
- Surgical errors or wrong-site surgery
- Unnecessary surgery
- Misreading or ignoring laboratory results
- Failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis
If you experienced any of these issues, then you may be able to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against your health care provider.
What Is a Medical Malpractice Attorney?
The main job of a medical malpractice lawyer is to litigate lawsuits on behalf of their clients. These clients might be surviving family members of patients or patients themselves. These clients are suing health care providers for malpractice.
Malpractice is a term that refers to professional negligence and misconduct on the part of a medical provider. In the medical field, malpractice involves the conduct of technicians, therapists, dentists, nurses, doctors, and other medical providers and health care professionals.
How Medical Malpractice Attorneys Work
A medical malpractice attorney will perform many of the daily tasks of a typical civil lawyer. Civil lawyers work on cases where there is a legal dispute but there aren’t any criminal charges involved.
Civil lawyers spend a lot of their time litigating cases, developing trial strategies, drafting motions, conducting investigations, and interviewing clients.
Medical malpractice attorneys also perform additional tasks. These can include:
- Working with legal nurse consultants to decipher doctor’s notes, review medical records, and analyze case merits
- Performing medical research relating to the plaintiff’s condition
- Setting up independent medical examinations (IMEs) to obtain an objective evaluation of the injured plaintiff’s condition
- Gathering and analyzing medical records
- Taking depositions of medical experts, medical personnel, and other third parties
- Working with medical experts to develop case theories, expert reports, and testimony to support the plaintiff’s case
A medical malpractice lawyer usually specializes in certain kinds of medical malpractice cases. These can include dental malpractices, nursing home abuse, surgery errors, and birth injuries.
It’s important that you hire an experienced and reputable firm to work with for your case, such as those at The Soffer Firm. You can check it out to learn more.
The Importance of Knowing What a Medical Malpractice Attorney Does
Hopefully, after reading the above article, you now have a better idea of what a medical malpractice attorney does. As we can see, medical malpractice is a serious issue. So you want to make sure you understand it before you file a suit.
Make sure to check out the rest of our site for more helpful articles today!