(Last Updated On: March 12, 2023)Having any kind of illness is terrifying in the beginning. If it’s more serious than the common cold, it’s likely to result in tests ordered from a doctor. It is their responsibility to determine what kind of illness they are testing for and what the results of the test mean. In the case of misdiagnosis, you not only don’t get treatment for the illness you do have, but you are treated for an illness that you don’t have, resulting in complications from medicines that your true illness doesn’t require. It can mean extensive treatments you don’t even need, resulting in lost wages, pain, and sometimes even suffering depending on the kind of things the doctor does to treat your phantom illness.
These horror stories seem like they would be a thing of the past in this modern era but sadly, they’re not. There is an overwhelming number of people who are misdiagnosed each year. While being misdiagnosed alone is not enough to justify compensation, compensation is warranted when the misdiagnosis results in consequences that are harmful to your health or livelihood. For example, if you are misdiagnosed and ordered to take time off work due to an illness you don’t have, you can actually receive legitimate compensation for lost wages. There are many other instances where compensation are warranted.
The great news is that it’s not up to you to take care of this burden. When you’ve got a true diagnosis and realize you were misdiagnosed initially, it’s time to bring your case to us and have us analyze it to determine if you are owed compensation for the misdiagnosis. We are a New York based law firm who has dealt with misdiagnosis cases for years. We know how to win your case.
Doctors should make a timely and accurate diagnosis of an illness. Granted, it takes time to reach a conclusion but by the time they do, they should correctly diagnose you and be certain within reason that you have the illness they feel that you do. There are some misdiagnosis mistakes that are more common than other. Among them are:
Cancer- Diagnosing someone with cancer when they don’t cancer can result in painful and miserable therapies such as chemotherapy. Nothing is more appalling than this type of misdiagnosis. Not only are they not treating what illness you do have but they’re treating you unnecessarily with procedures that are painful.
Heart attack- Sometimes doctors diagnose a heart attack as something as harmless as a panic attack. This is a life threatening error on the doctor’s part and sometimes even results in the death of the patient. Family members will definitely want to pursue compensation in these cases. Heart attacks can be properly diagnosed fairly easily these days with multiple tests. Failing to run these tests and sending the patient home with a “panic attack” is inexcusable.
Failing to refer- Sometimes a family physician just isn’t equipped or knowledgeable enough to make a definitive diagnosis. This is okay. Many family doctors quickly refer to a specialist and leave the matter to someone who knows more about a potential diagnosis than they do. Failing to do this and trying to diagnose an illness they don’t know enough about can have grave consequences for a patient.
There are many more situations that result in misdiagnosis and are a definite reason to contact our office. The same procedures for proving medical malpractice apply to proving misdiagnosis cases, but it helps to have lawyers who have worked on this type of medical malpractice case. Specifics really matter in these cases and lawyers who have encountered different types of defenses against this lawsuit will better be able to counter, and overcome, defense teams protecting negligent doctors.
The consequences of misdiagnosis can be lost wages, pain and suffering from unneeded medical procedures, higher medical bills because of useless procedures, and even death. No matter what kind of misdiagnosis you think you have, let us have a look at your case and tell you what we believe we can do for you. We’ve been recovering damages from negligent doctors for years upon years and we are confident in our ability to recover damages for you. Don’t assume that you aren’t owed damages just because you didn’t have “too many” unneeded procedures either. Even losing a day of work and going through one unnecessary procedure that caused pain and suffering can be enough to move your case forward.
We’ll interview you, doctors, nurses, and consult experts in your particular misdiagnosis case to make sure that you are owed compensation. We don’t get a penny from you until you get money for yourself to handle medical bills and any type of psychological damages from your misdiagnosis. It can be life altering and emotionally harmful to hear a diagnosis of “cancer” and then suddenly find out that that’s not what you had and that you were being put through needless pain and suffering because of a doctor’s carelessness. Don’t let doctors continue to harm people in this way. Call us today and let us go to bat for you. We want all of our clients to receive the best representation possible and we know from our success rate that we’re the best team for the job.
Keep in mind that misdiagnosis cases are extremely time sensitive. Your state will have a statute of limitations for medical malpractice cases, so you can’t just come back three years later and claim that a doctor harmed you by misdiagnosing an illness. It’s important to move forward with the case the moment you find out that you were misdiagnosed. If you let the statute of limitations date pass, you can no longer receive compensation for the misdiagnosis, which in most cases is a terrible tragedy. When there is a misdiagnosis that results in death, the doctor or doctors accountable need to be brought to justice through the court system.
Also be aware that many times insurance companies will try to compel you to settle for much less money than you are owed due to the misdiagnosis. Please don’t make the mistake of signing a settlement before you call into our New York firm. We are here standing by reading to look at the facts of your case and go to war on your behalf. We firmly believe that doctors who misdiagnose need to pay for their mistake. In most cases, the patients will certainly pay for the doctor’s error in the form of many thousands of dollars in unneeded medical procedures. Call or write to us today and we’ll immediately begin to look into your case.