What to do if You’ve been Misdiagnosed by Your Maryland Doctor
If you have been misdiagnosed by your doctor, there is a good chance that you will appreciate having the help of a highly rated injury lawyer Maryland residents can rely on.
When you’re feeling sick and don’t know what’s wrong, it can leave you feeling helpless and confused. Patients want to trust their doctors will identify what’s wrong and provide treatment. But if your doctor misdiagnosed you, that feeling of helplessness can turn into victimization.
Unfortunately misdiagnosis happens all too often in healthcare today. Cohen & Cohen has worked on numerous misdiagnosis malpractice cases in Maryland.
Get Your Medical Records and Seek Appropriate Care
Whether your correct diagnosis has come from a new doctor or from someone else, now that you have the proper diagnosis, it is important to seek out proper treatment. The team at Cohen & Cohen is well connected with the top specialists in the Maryland area. We typically advise our clients on the where to go for the best medical teams, for their new diagnosis.
If you haven’t already requested your medical records from your old doctor, it’s important to do so now. These will be critical to help your Maryland injury doctor to build a strong case for your claim.
Proving Medical Malpractice Based on Diagnostic Errors
There is nothing in law that specifically holds doctors accountable for diagnostic errors. Instead, medical malpractice lawsuits must prove three things:
- A doctor-patient relationship existed
- A medical professional was negligent and provided substandard care
- Negligence directly caused injury to the patient
Was Your Doctor Negligent?
Let’s take a closer look at the process doctors use to make a diagnosis. First off, many conditions and diseases share symptoms. It may not be clear right away what a patient has. Instead, the symptoms could be caused by several different things.
In some cases, a doctor may not properly diagnose a condition and it is not considered malpractice but when it does, it may be time for the victim and their family to contact an injury lawyer who is licensed to defend innocent people throughout Maryland.
Your doctor will consider all of your symptoms, how long they have been happening and your overall medical history. From there, tests will be ordered to rule out certain conditions. Along the way, it’s possible your symptoms or test results may warrant additional testing for new possible diagnoses.
This investigation should conclude with an answer – an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan. But if your doctor made a diagnostic error, your medical malpractice case must prove one of two things.
- The doctor failed to include the correct diagnosis in his or her differential diagnosis list — something that any doctor providing a reasonable standard of medical care would have done.
- The doctor did include the correct diagnosis on the differential diagnosis list but then failed to order the appropriate tests or seek the opinion of a specialist.
If any of the above have happened to you or someone you care about, discussing your situation with a Maryland injury lawyer may help you to make more informed decisions about what steps to take next.
Sometimes a misdiagnosis may also be caused by errors in diagnostic tests. This could have been caused by faulty equipment or human error. A test may have been performed incorrectly or a laboratory technician may have failed to read the results properly.
Call Cohen & Cohen to Assess Your Case
Medical malpractice cases are complex and subject to regulations that vary state by state.
The team at Cohen & Cohen is skilled in the rules and regulations of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. We have been fighting for and and winning cases for victims of medical malpractice for over 25 years. The days of you feeling helpless and vulnerable can come to an end today. Pick up the phone and call Cohen & Cohen for guidance. We’ll review your case for free and we’ll only represent you if we think you can win.
For a highly rated injury lawyer Maryland malpractice victims and their families recommend, contact Cohen & Cohen for a free case consultation and evaluation.