Is It Worth it to File a Malpractice Claim?
Is It Worth it to File a Malpractice Claim?
When you are injured, getting a legal claim filed is not always the first thing on your mind. But this is one area that it seems the lawyers descend like vultures on anyone who is injured in any way at all. This is one way that the legal profession gets such a bad reputation. Seeing all of those “ambulance chasers” and lawyers trying to talk us into filing malpractice claims on television is not a dignified way to portray any profession.
This whole area of malpractice can be pretty confusing to those of us outside of both the legal and the medical professions. But in a strict sense of the word, it may be something looking into if there is a clear case where a doctor either did not do their job or did it so poorly that it caused you additional pain and suffering or injury.
In that kind of situation, you may incur lots of additional medical expenses getting qualified help from an injury caused by a doctor who just didn’t do his or her job right. So it seems only right that the malpractice laws would be there to protect us from being victimized by doctors who were not doing their best to make you better.
The problem is, when it comes to using the malpractice laws to seek some satisfaction for a bad medical situation, it can get quite confusing. The first thing that might help get some definition of what constitutes malpractice is to understand the categories. There are five general types of medical error or “malfeasance” that can throw your case into the category of malpractice. It might be malpractice…
* If the doctor is not able to diagnose your illness or does so incorrectly.
* If the doctor or medical facility is too slow in providing medical care resulting in further medical problems for you.
* If the doctor fails to perform a medical procedure that is what you need to recover from injury or illness.
* If mistakes were made in prescribing the right medication or prescribing medication that is harmful to you.
* If the doctor fails to explain what needs to be done or is negligent in warning you of negative side effects of your treatment.
If you have suffered any kind of negative outcome that is directly related to your medical treatment on top of your original problem, it’s not too hard to fit what happened to you into this category. If you are a genuine victim of medical malpractice, identifying that is not always the most difficult part of the problem though. The most difficult part may be deciding what to do about it.
This is where that “ambulance chaser” aspect of the legal profession can be as much trouble as they can be of help. To make a decision about whether the potential outcome of a malpractice suit is worth the effort, you need a nonbiased viewpoint and advice based on the extent of your grievance and injury and how much you need the resolution to continue your recovery. When a lawyer or law firm pursues you so relentlessly to get a malpractice lawsuit going or they advertise to get that kind of business, you get the idea they are not looking after your best interest but their own.
Whatever they try to tell you, malpractice legal actions are not as easy to win as they might seem. There is a lot of burden or proof. So if you feel you have a case, the best thing is to work with legal advisors whom you trust and know they are not going to guide you to an action that is not in your best interest. Sometimes just using that lawyer to negotiate a resolution with the doctor is the best way to go.
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