Is Misdiagnosis Malpractice - Everything You Need To Know

Getting misdiagnosed doesn’t seem like a big deal at first glance, but the results can be catastrophic. According to data, wrong diagnoses lead to nearly 160k permanent life-changing injuries or deaths per year.

This is concerning, and if you suffered injuries due to a missed, late, or incorrect diagnosis, you may have the grounds to file a suit.

Here’s everything you need to know about these circumstances and how to determine is misdiagnosis malpractice. 

Is misdiagnosis malpractice?

Many clients wonder is misdiagnosis malpractice. There’s no straightforward answer here as not every wrong diagnosis results in medical malpractice claim. Even though they’re at the core of many suits, on their own, not every instance of a diagnosing error falls into a category of malpractice.

To put it differently, a failure to properly identify a condition must result in improper or delayed treatment, and consequently result in the worsening of the patient’s condition for it to be considered malpractice - and by extension, actionable in the court of law.

Types of misdiagnoses

To make it easier to understand is misdiagnosis malpractice, it’s useful to be familiar with the most common types of diagnostic errors:

1. Wrong diagnosis

In this scenario, a medical professional mistakenly establishes an incorrect diagnosis. For instance, they may pronounce an individual having a heart attack as someone who’s just suffering from a bad case of acid reflux. 

2. Failure to diagnose a condition

In most cases, this type of misdiagnosis occurs when a patient with a diagnosable condition is provided with a clean bill of health, meaning no diagnosis was established. 

Furthermore, a medical professional may diagnose only one condition when multiple were present. For example, a patient with a heart attack may also have acid reflux which the doctor correctly established, while failing to diagnose the more pressing concern.

3. Delayed diagnosis

Even if the physician accurately diagnoses an ailment, if significant time has passed from the time the condition should have been diagnosed, it may constitute malpractice.

For instance, if the individual from our previous examples left the emergency room with a wrong diagnosis and later returned at which point the doctor made the right diagnosis, they may have diagnosed the condition, but with a considerable delay - hence it’s considered a misdiagnosis.

How to prove a misdiagnosis

To successfully prove is misdiagnosis malpractice, certain elements need to be present.

The first one is the existence of a doctor-patient relationship, which doesn’t need to be substantiated in most cases. The reason why is simple - the sheer fact of a physician providing you with a medical service proves this element exists. 

The second and third elements are much more complex and are:

1. Negligence

Negligence occurs when a medical professional fails to provide you with the same skill and level of care as a physician of a similar specialty would under similar circumstances. 

Not every diagnostic mistake is malpractice, and mistakes happen to even the most skillful of doctors. This is why establishing negligence is not easy and requires a deep analysis of what a physician did or failed to do while diagnosing a condition. 

First, you must review an entire range of possible medical conditions the doctor considered when diagnosing you - commonly referred to as a differential diagnosis. After a differential diagnosis is established, the physician must rule out each condition by performing tests or consulting another specialist. The result here should be determining the right condition.

Taking this into account, to prove is misdiagnosis malpractice, you have to demonstrate that the doctor made any of the following errors:

• Failure to consider the right diagnosis - the physician failed to include the diagnosis on the differential diagnosis list
• Failure to order procedures, tests, or consult other specialists - they didn’t order the right tests
• Failure to establish the correct diagnosis - the physician did everything right up to this point but they still were unsuccessful in establishing the right diagnosis

Proving negligence is the most difficult thing in a malpractice case, which is why you should consult an experienced medical malpractice attorney. 

These legal professionals are experts at reviewing medical documentation and can ascertain whether the element of negligence exists. They also have access to expert witnesses who can offer an informed opinion on your misdiagnosis and if needed, provide testimony that explains why the physician in your case acted negligently. 

2. Misdiagnosis resulted in injury 

Along with negligence, for a medical malpractice case to be valid, you must also prove that it contributed to your injury or led to the worsening of the condition. In other words, the misdiagnosis led to your condition progressing beyond what it would have if the correct diagnosis was made and negatively affected your treatment and likely outcome. 

What damages can you recover?

Winning a malpractice case allows you to recover compensation in the form of damages for your injuries, which fall into two categories:

1. Special damages

Also referred to as economic, special damages provide compensation for your financial losses, including:

• Past and future medical expenses (also including therapy costs, medications, and medical equipment)
• Lost earnings
  
  

2. General damages

These serve to compensate you for the intangible effects of the misdiagnosis, such as:

• Pain and suffering
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Emotional distress
• Disability and disfigurement

Determining these damages is tricky since they don’t have a monetary value. This is where legal help is valuable as attorneys use mathematical formulas to assign general damages a clear dollar amount. 

Need assistance with your misdiagnosis case?

You may feel as if your case is simple because the doctor’s mistake seems obvious, but you still won’t get very far without an attorney guiding you. A medical malpractice case can negatively affect a physician’s career, and they’ll without a doubt fight your allegations to the bitter end.

Since these types of cases are the most difficult to win, you’ll need someone with deep expertise in medical malpractice - look no further than Sowell Chakour. 

Over the years, we fought and won cases for many Florida residents, and we offer something no other firm can offer - insider knowledge of the medical industry. Some of our attorneys have medical degrees, while others hold board certifications in medical malpractice, which is very rare in the US legal scene. 

Call (833) 633-6257 or fill out our contact form to get started and our attorneys will provide you with a case evaluation free of charge.

Note: 

The information in this blog post is for reference only and not legal advice. As such, you should not make legal decisions based on the information in this blog post. Moreover, there is no lawyer-client relationship resulting from this blog post, nor should any such relationship be implied. If you need legal counsel, please consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.