When you visit a healthcare provider, you expect them to take measurable precautions to diagnose an illness or condition. Failing to diagnose or treat a condition that may otherwise require a routine procedure may cause a decline in health and other long-term consequences. With the help of a Kansas City failure to diagnose lawyer, you may determine whether your failure to diagnose the claim constitutes medical malpractice to recover compensation for incurred medical expenses, lost wages, and physical pain and suffering.
The lawyers at Goza & Honnold understand that failure to diagnose incidents can have lasting repercussions on your physical, emotional, and financial health. To prove your right to compensation for accident-related damages, we work with expert medical witnesses who can validate your injuries and demonstrate how a reasonably prudent and similarly trained medical professional would have acted under the same circumstances. So you can focus on recovery, we will handle all aspects of your claim from initial consultation to resolution.
Common Errors That Cause a Failure to Diagnose Accident
When a treating physician or healthcare provider fails to properly recognize the signs, symptoms, or findings of a disease, they may fail to diagnose a condition to prevent it from worsening or causing irreparable damage.
The most common errors that may lead to a failure to diagnose claim include the following:
Radiology Errors
A treating physician or radiologist must use reasonable care when looking at CT scans, X-rays, MRIs, and other studies to detect disease, trauma, or other health concerns in a minimally invasive manner. Upon detection, they must report all findings that suggest illness or disease, even in discoveries that were not specifically looked for in the testing.
Suppose a physician does not use reasonable care to discern findings of a disease or illness on an imaging test or does not describe the results on reports sent to the ordering provider. In that case, they may miss a condition and fail to diagnose it in a timely manner.
Pathology Errors
Procedures such as biopsies are essential to determining whether something is malignant or benign, most commonly to confirm whether certain tissue is diseased. The pathologist must correctly interpret the tissue sample taken during the biopsy under the microscope to discover certain conditions, such as cancer. If they fail to diagnose cancer, the condition may progress beyond treatment.
Clinical Errors
Before determining a treatment plan, a healthcare provider must obtain history, symptoms, complaints, physical findings, and other information to properly understand what may be wrong and what should be done to treat the patient.
Disregarding complaints, failing to order lab tests, disregarding laboratory test results, and ignoring relevant medical history are all circumstances where a provider may fail to obtain all necessary information for making a correct or timely diagnosis.
If you have suffered injuries due to improper treatment, delayed treatment, or no treatment due to a medical provider’s violation of a duty of care, then you may seek a medical malpractice claim with the help of a failure to diagnose lawyer.
Determining Malpractice in a Failure to Diagnose Claim
In a failure to diagnose claim, you must prove that the treating physician’s actions violated the standard of care by failing to act as another similarly skilled doctor would have in the same situation.
To determine if your physician is liable for medical malpractice, you must demonstrate the following elements:
- Existence of a doctor-patient relationship: An official doctor-patient relationship existed
- Reasonable duty of care: The treating physician’s failure to diagnose violated an acceptable standard of care
- Causation: You suffered injuries directly resulting from the medical provider’s negligence
- Economic and non-economic damages: You sustained financial, physical, and emotional losses due to the treating physician’s negligence
Obtaining expert testimony, as well as other vital evidence, is crucial to the success of a failure to diagnose case. The Kansas City failure to diagnose lawyers at Goza & Honnold have extensive resources to gather the evidence you need and are well-versed in dealing with insurance companies on your behalf.
Recoverable Compensation in a Failure to Diagnose Claim
In a successful failure to diagnose claim, you may recover the following damages:
- Medical expenses
- Diminished earning capacity
- Lost wages
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of quality of life
- Life expectancy reduction
The value of your claim will depend on the specific circumstances of your case, including the severity of your injuries, how your quality of life has been affected, the duration of recovery time added to your existing recovery, and other factors.
Speak With the Kansas City Medical Malpractice Lawyers at Goza & Honnold
If your injuries could have been prevented if your treating physician provided an acceptable standard of care through a proper and timely diagnosis, speak with the Kansas City failure to diagnose lawyers at Goza & Honnold for a comprehensive assessment of your claim. You may be entitled to legal recourse for the physical, emotional, and financial losses incurred due to medical negligence.
To schedule a no-cost consultation with one of our Kansas City medical malpractice attorneys, fill out a contact form or call our office at (913) 451-3433.