Steps in Filing Medical Malpractice Complaint
Medical malpractice is the most common legal complaint that involves hospital and doctors. This takes place when a medical error, even the smallest or simplest one, occurs due to negligence or carelessness and results in injury, disability or fatality. It’s a popular misconception that for a medical error to be considered malpractice, death should occur. It’s not necessarily that way. If a mistake committed by a doctor or member of the medical staff results in serious injury or disability, this can also be ground for medical malpractice complaint.
Some of the common errors in medical malpractice include failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis of a disease, improper treatment, surgical errors, incorrect administration of anesthesia, prescription errors, and so on. If you or anyone in your family member were a victim of medical malpractice, you can file a complaint and recover for damages. Here are the steps that you need to undertake regarding this matter.
Talk to a lawyer
The first step is to find an attorney who specializes in the area of medical malpractice. Having a good lawyer by your side will help make things easier and less complicated for you. As you can probably imagine, the doctor or hospital that committed the error would do everything in its power to safeguard his/her/its reputation so you can expect that they will not be too easy in disclosing information pertinent to your case. A lawyer will help you get through this obstacle. Since most of medical malpractice cases involve lots of money, the doctor and hospital will have their malpractice defense lawyers fight arduously for the case.
Get certification of merit
Your lawyer will have a medical professional on his/her staff who will be ready for consultation regarding the details of the case. This medical professional will give a certification of merit to confirm that negligence in the medical care or treatment was present.
Notify all the parties involved
It’s not only the doctor who’s involved in the case but also the nurses and hospital (or clinic or any other medical facility). They will all be notified about the claim. They in turn will get in touch with the medical malpractice insurance providers to notify them about this. Their defense attorney will start to build defense.
File the suit
After it has been established that the case is meritorious, you and your lawyer can now work to file the case in the civil court. This will begin the legal process. The parties will have time to establish their cases and build their evidences. This will help determine the strength of the claim.
Consider settlement negotiations
Most of the cases that involve medical malpractice are settled out of the court. Since both parties are aware of the costs and risks of taking the complaint to trial, they usually agree to settle the amount out of court. If it happens that the amount of damages are not amicably agreed upon, then the plaintiff attorney will bring the case to the court.
Like legal malpractice, medical practice cases are hard and complicated. It’s best that you have a good lawyer to help you in every step of the way.
For more tips and information about legal malpractice please visit: medical malpractice
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