Medical Malpractice Claim Requirements

Medical malpractice happens when the patient is harmed by the doctor or some other healthcare expert who fails to efficiently perform his/her medical duties. The rules about the medical malpractice for when to bring the lawsuit is to must notify the doctor in advance. These rules also differ from state to state. But there are some principals and a broad range of categories of rules that are applied to most of the medical malpractice cases. Here is an overview of some of the special rules and laws.

Requirements for the Claim

To prove that the medical malpractice happened claimant must be able to show all these things:

The plaintiff has to show that he/she had consulted the doctor with he/she is suing. This means that the victim hired the physician and the physician was willing to be hired. If the doctor began seeing and treating the plaintiff, then it’s easy to prove the doctor-patient relationship existed. The question about the frequent existence of relationship arises when the consulting doctor did not treat the patient directly.

Just because the patient is unhappy with the results or treatment does not mean that the doctor is responsible for the medical malpractice. The healthcare specialist must have been negligent in relation to the treatment or diagnosis. To litigate for the malpractice, the claimant must be able to show that the physician caused the damage in a way that the capable doctor, under the similar circumstances, would not have. In almost all the states it is required that the patient present the medical specialist to discuss the proper medical standards of care and to present how the defendant diverged from those standards.

In most of the medical malpractice cases where the patient is already injured or sick, the question arises that whether the doctor did negligent or not, or actually caused the damage. For example, if the patient dies after the lung cancer treatment, and the surgeon did do negligently, then it becomes hard to prove the negligence of the doctor caused the death instead of cancer. The claimant must prove that it is “more likely than not” that the incompetence of the doctor directly caused the harm. Usually, the claimant must have the medical expert to testify that the carelessness of the doctor caused the harm.

If it is even clear that the doctor performed below the standard care in his/her field, the patient cannot take legal action if the patient did not incur any injury or harm. The examples of the types of harm the patient can claim for:

• Physical pain
• Additional medical bills
• Mental anguish
• Lost work and earning capacity

Types of Medical Malpractice

A wide range of situations can lead to the medical malpractice case, from the doctor leaving the sponge in the stomach of the patient during the operation to failing to tell the patient that the prescribed drug might cause the heart failure. Most of the medical claims fall under following categories:

• Failure to diagnose
• Failure to warn the patient of the known risks
• Improper treatment

Getting Help

Law for medical malpractice is highly regulated by the complex body rules, which considerably differ from state to state so it is necessary to get the consultation from the lawyer. Choose a law office of Pacific Attorney Group for a seasoned medical malpractice lawyer.