Do you know how many patients are injured at the hands of medical professionals every year? The numbers are up there and they are shocking. You go to a doctor or hospital to get better, not to come out worse than when you went in. Sometimes accidents do happen, but recent studies show that a large number of these cases are due to negligence. Whether you are injured due to negligence or it was a pure accident, you are granted the legal right to take action. You should be compensated for the mental and physical damage that you faced. However, before you just go out and file a malpractice claim there are several things that you need to know.
Do You Have Grounds To Make A Claim?
When you are harmed by a medical professional, it does not automatically mean that you have grounds to make a claim. There are certain standards and criteria that must be met before the situation can be considered a malpractice claim. First, you have to discover if the doctor or medical professional failed to live up to his or her duty. Did the doctor owe you a duty of care that he or she did not live up to? You also have to discover if that duty was breached. Was the injury brought on by that breach of duty? An obvious example of this would be if a surgeon sewed you up with a surgical tool left inside. A less noticeable example of this situation would be if a doctor misdiagnosed you. You also have to know if the exact injury was caused by this breach of duty. You can either ask medical malpractice attorneys first to confirm whether or not the act is medical malpractice, or you can refer to these factors to consider listed below.
You Need Evidence
If a medical malpractice claim goes to litigation, you will need sufficient evidence. This means that you are going to need credentialed medical experts who are willing to testify and say that your injuries are the result of the negligence of a said medical professional. These professionals will also need detailed documents, x-rays, or diagnoses that back up their claims in the court of law.
There Is A Limited Window
When it comes to filing a malpractice claim, you need to know that you are working within a limited window. In some parts of the country, you might have three years or longer to file a claim after the injury. However, in other parts of the country, you might not have as long. Whatever the situation is, you want to file the claim as early as possible, because sometimes these cases can draw out. If the opposing lawyer knows that your limitation window is coming up, he or she will do whatever they can to push the case past the window.
Know Who To File The Claim Against
Not only is getting the claim filed within the time limit important, but you also have to know that you are making the claim against the right individual. In most cases, you will probably just be making the claim against a single doctor. However, there are some situations when you might have to make the claim against the hospital or health care system itself.
