Dallas Medical Malpractice Attorney | How is Failure to Diagnose Malpractice?

How is Failure to Diagnose Malpractice?

A failure to diagnose on the part of a physician if the justification behind almost half of the medical malpractice claims brought every year. To understand why this is the case, you have to understand the potential consequences of a physician missing a diagnosis that they should've caught. In some cases, they incorrectly diagnose a condition as something more innocuous than the condition from which the patient actually suffers. In other cases, they completely miss the illness and the consequences are very severe for the patient.

The Science of Diagnosis

Diagnosis is one of the most difficult parts of medical practice. It takes a lot of experience and knowledge to do it right and, quite often, doctors consult with one another to come up with an accurate diagnosis for a given patient. To make sure that their patients have the best chance of recovering from whatever ails them, the doctor has to be right when they make a diagnosis. When they are wrong, the patient may end up suffering far more than they should or, in some cases, actually dying because of not having received proper treatment for their actual condition.

Failure

A doctor may fail to diagnose a condition for many different reasons, but sometimes patients bear some responsibility in this, as well. You have to have informed the doctor of something being wrong with you, in some cases, for one of these claims to be successful. If you deliberately concealed information from them and they didn’t catch an illness because of that, it’s probably going to be found to have been your fault that they failed. If they had every opportunity to diagnose you, however, and they failed, a jury might find that you were made to suffer because of their negligence.

Knowing the Difference

You’ll have to talk to an attorney to get information about whether or not a failure to diagnose is justification to file a medical malpractice claim. This is a very intricate area of the law and you’ll want an attorney who has a lot of experience with these cases to handle yours. Without expert representation, your chances of winning a claim are vastly diminished. Speaking with an attorney oftentimes comes at no charge and, if they take you on as a client, they may be willing to do so under a contingency agreement, which means you don’t have to pay them any upfront fees.