No one wants to need a malpractice attorney. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has reported that between 2005 and 2009 the average payout for a medical malpractice claim was about $363,000 for injuries sustained as an inpatient and about $290,000 for an outpatient injury. Nearly 34% of all malpractice claims made by people who had been injured as inpatients report problems with the intake process while 46% of cases brought by people who want to sue over an injury they sustained as an outpatient are due to problems with their diagnosis. All of these people were helped by someone at a personal injury law practice.
When you approach a personal injury attorney who specializes in medical malpractice, you should consider the following:
- Why do you want to sue a medical practitioner? One of the first things the person at the personal injury law practice will ask is why you want to sue. If you are making a good faith basis for your lawsuit, you should go forward with it. If you just do not like the results you received from a doctor or do not think they were nice enough to you, your lawsuit is more for revenge than to right a real wrong and it will fail.
- Have you been injured? All medial malpractice lawsuits begin with wrongdoing done by a medical practitioner. To meet the standard of what constitutes a valid malpractice claim, the provider has to have breached the professional standards for care AND the patient needs to have been injured as a result. Unless there is any injury, there is no real basis for a lawsuit. This is one of the personal injury law basics.
- What are the damages you suffered? You have to be able to do into incredible detail about your injury and how you have suffered. You should not hold back or be shy about describing what you have been through. Are you able to work? What adaptations have you had to make since you sustained the injury? Before you go into a meeting with someone at a personal injury law practice, draw up a list of both how you have suffered and what this is costing you. You need to show the personal injury attorney what your injury was and how it has hurt your life. This is not the time to be too proud to complain about how you have been hurt.
- What does your gut tell you? Do not think that your gut is always right. Medical malpractice cases are some of the most complicated personal injury cases. Most likely, your case includes multiple medical specialties and physicians. Finding the exact action that lead to your injury and proof of this may take a long time. Most medical problems arise from a number of factors. There are instances where a doctor did something that was so wrong that it had an immediate and distinct impact on a patient. When that is not the case, you need impartial experts to investigate your claim. Be open to what they find.
No one wants to need a personal injury law practice but it is good they are around. Too many people are hurt by medical mistakes that often could have been prevented. If you have suffered at the hands of a physician or other medical professional, you may have a decent case against them. You should make sure you are entering into this for the right reasons. No doctor or other medical professional can guarantee any particular outcome. It is unfortunate but not every treatment or procedure goes the way we want it to. Having said that, you have a right to competent and decent medical care. When you do not get that and are hurt by mistakes your doctor has made, you have every right to sue.
Review these points and keep them in mind when you go to see a personal injury law practice.
