6 Signs You Need To Contact A Lawyer For Malpractice

When you’re injured or sick, you trust your medical providers to give you the best possible care. However, the standard of care may fall short and patients can be harmed when physicians make incorrect decisions regarding diagnosis of medical conditions and patient care. It may lead to injury, deterioration of health, or even death.

If this is the case, you might have a claim for negligence or medical malpractice, which may require you to seek the help of an experienced medical malpractice attorney.

If you don’t know when to contact a lawyer for malpractice, make sure to check the signs below:

1. Error During Treatment Or Surgery

If your doctor made an error during a treatment, procedure or surgery, you can ask help from a medical injury lawyer to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Doctors that don’t comply with the medical care standards increase your risk of complications, mistreatment, pain, injury, or further discomfort from treatments in the future.

The common errors that doctors could make include the following:

• Giving patients contaminated or incompatible blood during transfusions
• Performing a procedure or surgery on the wrong body part
• Using unsterilized instruments that can result in dangerous infections after the surgery
• Leaving any surgical instruments behind during a procedure
• Damaging an organ or blood vessel accidentally during surgery
• Administering improper dosage of anesthesia or medications.

2. Your Medical Condition Worsens Or Remains Unchanged

Whether you’re getting medical care in your preferred hospital or you’re an outpatient, if you’re properly treated and diagnosed, you would expect to see improvement, unless the diagnosis is a deteriorating or fatal condition.

If your health worsens or doesn’t adequately improve, you may not be getting the right care. If you’re always following the orders of your doctor and you’re not getting any better, it may mean that your doctor made a mistake. If this mistake ruined your health or caused severe injury or pain, you must consult a lawyer for advice to file a medical malpractice case.

3. Different Second Opinion

If you are dissatisfied with your care, you must get a second opinion, regardless if you’ve been seeing your long-time doctor. In some cases, a second opinion may lessen the risk of a misdiagnosis. It can also help prevent treatments that aren’t only unnecessary, but also ineffective.

If you get a different opinion from another doctor, consult a lawyer. The different treatment recommendation and diagnosis is a sign that one of the doctors isn’t doing their job properly. Getting an unexpected outcome from a second opinion also means that you should look for the best possible doctor who can offer you better healthcare services.

4. Your Doctor Refuses To Answer Questions

Medical care must be interactive. As a patient, you need to tell your doctor about the symptoms you’re experiencing. Then, your doctor will ask questions to diagnose you and provide the right treatment.

If you ask questions regarding your diagnosis, such as why the treatment doesn’t work or makes you feel worse, and your doctor refuses to answer, it’s a red flag. If your doctor neglects your concerns and you continue to experience discomfort, consulting a reliable malpractice lawyer to help you is the best route to making a malpractice claim.

5. Serious Diagnosis After A Few Lab Tests Only

If you’ve been diagnosed with a serious health condition after a limited number of lab tests, your doctor should be questioned. Urine and blood tests may give signs that you’re suffering from serious conditions such as kidney failure, heart disease or cancer, but more lab tests must be ordered by your doctor before they provide a diagnosis.

A diagnosis must include a detailed physical exam where your doctor will listen to your concerns and check your symptoms. Once they’ve addressed the signs and symptoms, they’ll order lab tests and send them off for better assessment. When the results are available, your doctor should do further tests such as biopsies, ultrasounds, MRIs, and x-rays.

Misdiagnosing serious health conditions with simple urine and blood tests increases the stress and worry on the patient, while potentially ignoring other illnesses that may be present.

6. Permanent Or Disabling Injuries

Anybody who experiences permanent or disabling injuries at the hands of any healthcare professional deserves compensations. If this is your case, it’s crucial to hire a malpractice lawyer immediately. The longer you wait to seek legal help, the harder it may be to prove your case. You have to act as soon as possible to make legal malpractice claims to get compensation.

Final Thoughts

Everybody wants to know they’re in good hands when they’re working with healthcare professionals, particularly if they’re undergoing a surgery. Unfortunately, no matter much how you trust doctors to never make mistakes, they can still happen.

If you’ve experienced the signs above, make sure to hire a lawyer for malpractice to help with your case. In this way, you can be assured that your malpractice claim or lawsuit will be handled effectively.