Learn Whether the Failure to Diagnose Your Condition Could be Medical Malpractice
Every day, both in the United States and worldwide, instances of failure to diagnose occur. The failure to diagnose a condition can have devastating consequences, leading to severe injuries, disabilities, or even wrongful death. Often, these failures stem from medical malpractice, which means they should have never happened in the first place. It is disheartening that injuries resulting from the failure to diagnose could have been entirely avoidable. Unfortunately, many individuals experience the impact of failure to diagnose, and those who do may be eligible to seek compensation for their injuries. In personal injury cases, such as medical malpractice, monetary compensation is typically sought.
If you or a loved one has suffered any form of personal injury due to a healthcare provider’s failure to diagnose your condition, you may be entitled to monetary compensation for medical malpractice. In numerous cases, failure to diagnose could have been prevented with proper care and treatment from healthcare providers. Discover how a failure to diagnose lawyer, like the ones we have on our team, can assist you at Medical Malpractice Universe.
What is Medical Malpractice?
For someone to successfully commence a medical malpractice claim, they must prove the four elements of a medical malpractice claim. The four elements include the following:
- Duty – To establish a viable claim, it is necessary to demonstrate the existence of a relationship between the healthcare provider and the patient. Moreover, it must be evident that the healthcare provider owed a specific standard of care and responsibility to the patient in terms of their treatment, care, and assessment.
- Breach – Substantiating a breach in the standard of care is crucial, indicating that the healthcare provider failed to provide the expected level of care to the patient. This failure is often referred to as a deviation from the standard of care.
- Causation – It is essential to prove that the breach in the standard of care directly caused harm to the patient. In a failure to diagnose scenario, this would entail demonstrating that the doctor’s failure to promptly diagnose the patient’s specific condition resulted in harm.
- Damages – The patient must have suffered some form of injuries or damages as a direct consequence of the deviation from the standard of care.
What Does Failure to Diagnose Mean?
Failure to diagnose means one of two things; either the physician failed to make any diagnosis or the physician diagnosed you with a condition you do not have. Either of these things can have devastating consequences.
Take cancer, for example. A delay in diagnosing cancer can result in serious harm to a patient, allowing this devastating disease to grow stronger and faster, becoming incurable and deadly. But diagnosing a patient with cancer when they do not have cancer can also be dangerous for other reasons, including unnecessarily going through chemotherapy or radiation, which can cause severe injury and damage.
Why Does Failure to Diagnose Occur?
The occurrence of failure to diagnose can stem from various factors, with human error being a prevalent cause. Unfortunately, several common reasons contribute to failure to diagnose, including the following:
- Inadequate testing conducted
- Insufficient health history taken
- Disregard for patient’s complaints
- Test result misinterpretation
- Inexperienced doctors and medical staff
- Failure to triage appropriately
- Neglecting to refer to specialist
- Test result mix-up with another patient
- Lack of caution
- Improper performance of diagnostic testing
What Conditions are Commonly Misdiagnosed or Go Undiagnosed?
Unfortunately, some conditions are not diagnosed or are misdiagnosed, causing catastrophic injury or even death. Examples of these conditions include the following:
Atrial Fibrillation (A-Fib)
A-fib, an irregular heartbeat, poses significant dangers as it disrupts the synchronized beating of the heart’s chambers. This irregularity can manifest as skipped beats, fluttering, shaking, increased or erratic heart rate, and, in extreme cases, even complete cessation of heartbeats. Additionally, individuals with atrial fibrillation face an elevated risk of blood clot formation.
The chaotic heart rhythm can lead to the accumulation and stagnation of blood in the upper chambers of the heart, making those with A-fib prone to developing blood clots. Unfortunately, this puts them at a heightened risk of experiencing a stroke. Therefore, timely diagnosis and effective management of A-fib are of utmost importance in preventing these severe complications from arising.
Heart Attack
Another condition that doctors and other healthcare professionals, unfortunately, fail to diagnose all too common is a heart attack. A heart attack often occurs due to an interruption of blood flow to the heart. The blockage then causes the heart muscle to die. Most people understand that heart attacks are a medical emergency and must be diagnosed and treated immediately to prevent permanent damage to the heart or even death.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen as it should. Healthcare providers sometimes dismiss concerns raised by patients experiencing a heart attack or misdiagnose them with a less severe condition like indigestion. There are also cases where necessary testing is not ordered, and a thorough health history is not obtained. These actions can lead to the overlooking or delayed treatment of a heart attack. The longer a patient experiencing a heart attack waits, the more damage it can cause.
Cancer
Cancer often goes undiagnosed or experiences significant delays in identification. It occurs when abnormal cells grow uncontrollably, potentially affecting the functionality of healthy cells. Delayed cancer diagnosis results in postponed treatment, requiring more invasive and toxic therapies. In some cases, if cancer spreads unchecked, it can be fatal.
Failure to diagnose cancer can arise from neglecting to obtain a complete health history, failing to conduct necessary diagnostic tests, or misinterpreting the results. Additionally, there are instances where essential routine screenings, such as mammograms, are overlooked, leading to missed cancer diagnoses.
Moving on to Stroke
The majority of individuals are aware that a stroke necessitates immediate medical attention. Without prompt intervention, a stroke can leave a person permanently disabled or result in death. A stroke occurs when there is an interruption of blood flow to the brain or a rupture of a blood vessel within the brain.
Failure to diagnose a stroke can stem from an inability to recognize the signs and symptoms, inadequate assessment of a stroke victim, failure to conduct proper stroke testing, or misdiagnosing the condition altogether, leading to delayed diagnosis. Sadly, for some stroke victims, a diagnosis may not occur until catastrophic brain damage has already taken place or even until it is too late to prevent death.
What are Signs that Failure to Diagnose May Have Occurred?
Sure signs may indicate that you or a loved one has been a victim of failure to diagnose. Symptoms of this may include the following:
- You or your loved one are given one diagnosis only to find out at a later time that it was actually another diagnosis
- A delay in diagnosing a condition care leads to permanent or long-term damage
- You are told that your tests (scans, lab work, etc.) are normal only to be told at a later time that they were actually abnormal
- There is a significant delay in diagnosing your condition, and you end up with damages as a result
What Damages Are Commonly Awarded for Failure to Diagnose Cases?
Victims of failure to diagnose claims are often awarded damages. Damages are typically monetary. Common damages for failure to diagnose claims include the following:
- Physical pain and suffering (past, present, and future)
- Emotional pain and suffering (past, present and future)
- Loss of wages (past, presents and future)
- Loss of consortium
- Long-term care
- Prosthetics or orthotics coverage
- Assistive device coverage
- Rehabilitation
- Nursing care
- Funeral or burial expenses
These are just some of the many types of damages that victims of failure to diagnose may be eligible for.
Was There a Delay or Failure to Diagnose Your Health Condition, Learn How We Can Help You
When a healthcare provider fails to diagnose a health condition, it can lead to significant personal injuries or even the wrongful death of an innocent individual. While some healthcare providers may assert that the failure to diagnose was inevitable, this claim is not always accurate and often used as a defense to dissuade patients from seeking legal representation. Don’t fall into that trap. Instead, reach out to an experienced medical malpractice lawyer specializing in failure to diagnose cases, such as our team at Medical Malpractice Universe.