Medical errors are one of the leading causes of death.
It is common to hear about cases where people feel their result is not what they expected – whether through surgery or medical treatment.
People have questions when they sense that something doesn’t feel right – so – people tend to seek legal advice by contacting a personal injury lawyer to get assessed whether or not they were, in fact, the victim of medical negligence or malpractice.
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| How Do Personal Injury Lawyers Assess a Medical Negligence Claim?: eAskme |
It is important to mention that there is a difference between bad outcomes and medical malpractice. There can be bad outcomes from surgeries that even the best global surgeons could be doing – despite doing their best job.
These types of cases are not something that the personal injury lawyer would consider medical malpractice as the bad outcome could occur despite the doctor or surgeon following the standards of care and doing everything that any reasonable doctor would have done in a similar situation.
The Lawyer’s Procedure for Investigating a Medical Negligence Claim:
Go to a personal injury lawyer and ask them to evaluate your personal injury case.
You should know that the lawyer understands the underlying rules and whether what their clients are talking about could be a product of medical negligence.
Suppose the lawyer gets the sense that there is a good possibility that the physician crossed a line in terms of medical negligence, which is also what caused the problem.
In that case, the lawyer might get more and more interested as they go along.
The lawyer will then contact a physician and probably also pay for the physician’s services to review the medical records to give their client the determination as to whether or not there exists some probable cause that there was some medical negligence committed and that the medical negligence caused the personal injury.
But – before the lawyer gets to that point – the lawyer will need to make a quite tough assessment regarding whether or not the case constitutes a good economic decision for the lawyer to take the case.
This is also the point where most people get disappointed, and this is also the point where most of the time, the cases are rejected by the attorney because they are very expensive to move forward.
The thing is that doctors are often very successful at convincing juries that they didn’t do anything wrong.
This is also where the mindset of the jury comes in. Look at it from this perspective – no one wants to believe their doctor isn’t capable because society holds doctors on a very high pedestal – they are deemed reliable.
So, the jury might have a hard time picturing that their doctor could be at fault, so they wouldn’t want to believe that anyone else’s doctor could be capable of negligence.
On the contrary, if the jury has experienced some medical malpractice and medical negligence in their life – they are more likely to empathize with the client and rule the judgment in the client’s favor.
Nonetheless, personal injury cases that stem from medical negligence are usually high-risk, so personal injury lawyers have a hard choice to make when they make a detailed assessment of the case.
If you believe you have been a personal injury victim due to medical malpractice or medical negligence, you will want to get the lawyer’s opinion from Pittman, Roberts & Welsh, PLLC, before filing a lawsuit against the doctor.
From the lawyer’s perspective – the lawyer will be carefully looking at the potential risk their client is asking them to take.
They will assess whether the case is worth taking the risk and whether or not there is an economic sense for them.
Understanding Restrictions & Financial Caps:
Some states have bog restrictions concerning damage recovery.
Suppose a victim of medical negligence approaches a personal injury lawyer and tells them that the effects of malpractice have entirely ruined their life – they cannot live a normal life.
Medical negligence has caused them real pain and suffering.
Now the lawyer might empathize with the plaintiff – but they will also have to look at the financial aspect, which is greatly impacted by the cap.
For instance, the cap in some states for non-economic loss is three hundred thousand dollars.
Of course, this might sound like it is not an insignificant amount of money – but – when you are looking at a case that takes up to 150 thousand dollars to take through a trial – and as a lawyer, you need to get reimbursed for all the costs – if you win.
There is also the risk that you might lose the case, which is why the personal injury lawyer will ensure that the case is really obvious.
Suppose you compare the non-economic laws with the economic laws, where a client’s career is ruined by the consequences of medical malpractice to the point where the person is completely disabled from engaging in the career where they were making a living.
In that case, that can add up to a lot of money.
We are also looking at medical care costs – not only for the past but also for the future.
You are also looking at home health care costs – especially for infants who have been injured and have their entire life in front of them.
First, the personal injury lawyer will look at things from the medical standpoint – where they assess whether medical negligence has been involved and whether it caused a personal injury.
But then, very importantly – the lawyer has to make a financial assessment and determine that the likely recovery will add up to the sufficient amount that is recoverable and that the personal injury case is a case that the lawyer can take on a contingent fee basis.
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