Medical malpractice cases are usually filed by the patients who have suffered injuries or otherwise have been harmed due to wrong diagnosis or substandard medical treatment by a qualified medical service provider who may be a doctor, nurse, lab technician or medical or hospital worker. Usually, the issue of whether a medical service provider failed to provide standard care or was negligent in his or her duties, is based on whether the patient would have experienced the same standard of care from another equally qualified medical professional under similar circumstances.
While most health care professionals strive to provide the highest standard of care to all patients, sometimes things may go wrong. If you or anyone close to you has received poor medical care, suffered wrong or delayed diagnosis, experienced breach of confidentiality in doctor-patient relationship, or lack of consent that has led to your injury, you are entitled to exercise your legal right for medical malpractice claim.
Followings are the most fundamental steps of filing a medical malpractice case:
Contact the Medical Care Professional
The very first step to a medical malpractice claim is to get in touch with the medical professional who was entrusted with the duty of providing standard care. The objective is to have a clear understanding of what went awfully wrong and allow the professional to figure out whether and how wrongs can be rectified.
In most cases, medical professionals agree to provide ‘remedial’ services and sometimes, they do it free of charge.
Contact the Concerned Medical Licensing Board
If contacting the involved medical professional fails to produce any good, you should get in touch with the relevant medical licensing board. Though the board has no right to instruct the professional to compensate the victim, they can warn the practitioner and may even guide you about your next steps.
Know the Statute of Limitations
When planning to file a medical malpractice claim, you should figure out how much time you have to file the claim. Medical malpractice cases require the victims to file a lawsuit within a specific time limit (commonly referred to as “statutes of limitations”) after the injury was sustained; otherwise, the patients might have the risk of getting their rights to receive compensation waived.
The statute of limitations is not same across all states. Therefore, you should check the statutes of limitations in your state to ensure that you do not miss the chance of filing a medical malpractice claim within the particular time limit.
Receive a Medical Assessment to Ensure Merit of Your Case
An increasing number of states now require patients to produce a “certificate of merit” before they start a medical malpractice case to figure out if the harm sustained was actually caused by the medical practitioner’s negligence.
You must consult a medical expert before filing a certificate of merit. The expert will scrutinize your medical files and history to certify that the involved medical professional failed to provide the kind of care as per the accepted standard and it caused you harm.
You can drag the case to the court or opt for an out-of-court settlement. It makes sense to rely on the expertise and experience of a Miami medical malpractice attorney and leave it to him/her to decide which could be the best course of action in your case.
Comments are closed.