If you have suffered an injury, illness or complication due to a medical error, contact us immediately.
Health is always first. For this reason, we give all our confidence to doctors and health professionals, people who have dedicated a good part of their lives to the study and practice of their respective specialties. However a doctor, a nurse or an assistant can also fail us.
Inappropriate treatment, misdiagnoses or even actions not approved by the patient are examples of negligence or medical malpractice (medical malpractice) and that is why the US legal system has developed rules and procedures to determine the responsibility of those involved in each of these regrettable cases.
Do you have a case of medical malpractice?
To establish with certainty that you are facing a situation of medical malpractice, there are four very important things that we should be able to prove:
- The health professional had duties with the victim, or in other words, there really was a doctor-patient relationship between that person and you or your loved one.
- The health professional failed to do his duty with the patient deviating from the applicable standard of care, that is, he did not follow the proper procedure to treat an illness.
- There is a causal relationship between this deviation and the damage suffered by the patient.
- The damage suffered by the patient is real and demonstrable.
If all this applies to your situation, it is time to take immediate action.
Find out how much time you have available
If you suffered an injury or damage due to irregularities by a doctor or health worker, every day that passes counts a lot. All lawsuits in the United States, including lawsuits for medical malpractice, have a time limit to be filed and accepted after the incident, at the risk of losing all of your rights to claim compensation for damages. This time limit varies according to the state and it is your responsibility to find out as soon as possible to prevent your case, even if legitimate, from remaining without resolution.
Contact the professional in question
Before filing the lawsuit for medical malpractice, you should contact the person who attended you to find out the possible cause of what happened and give the doctor, assistant or nurse the opportunity to determine if it is something that could be remedied. Health professionals are usually willing to offer additional services to get a solution or correct a problem, often even for free, as this could save them long legal processes and prevent them from affecting their reputation. If you do not receive a satisfactory response after contacting the person who treated you, it is time to move on to the next instance.
Contact the Medical Board of your state
Each state has a Medical Board (English State Medical Board) responsible, inter alia, to issue licenses for the medical professionals to exercise their profession legally. Although these boards do not usually give orders for payment of compensation for patients, it is very common for them to issue disciplinary warnings if they learn that one of their members is breaking their codes of ethics. If you let them know about your medical malpractice situation, they will probably contact the professional or professionals in question and offer you advice about their options.
Receive a Medical Evaluation
Depending on each state, it is very common that you need what we know as an “Certificate of Merit” (Certificate of Merit in English), which is a document prepared by another doctor in which it is established, after a detailed evaluation to check it, that the damages suffered by you have been caused by medical malpractice by a health professional. Once the certificate is issued, you have the necessary evidence to proceed with the claim.
Get a lawyer
After receiving the medical certificate that proves the veracity of your claim of medical malpractice, it is advisable to hire a lawyer who is responsible for their representation. A qualified lawyer has the necessary knowledge and experience to evaluate the different variables presented by your case and explain the different legal ways available to obtain compensation and how to proceed in each one of them. The way forward will depend on all the legal aspects involved, and it is therefore prudent to leave this work in the hands of a professional.