WRONG DIAGNOSIS LAWYERS JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

Case Types

A medical illness is bad enough – it can cause excruciating pain, long-term suffering and result in insurmountable medical bills. But it can be worse – what if your doctor makes a mistake and wrongly diagnoses your illness? This can mean additional medical treatment, pain, and medical bills.

What is Wrong or Delayed Diagnosis?

The misdiagnosis of your injury means your doctor or other healthcare providers wrongly diagnosed your medical condition. The wrong diagnosis may increase the severity of your medical condition, and a delayed diagnosis may postpone the treatment you actually need.

These common scenarios illustrate how a misdiagnosis can cause you needless pain and suffering:

• Wrong diagnosis. Sometimes, your doctor makes an incorrect call. For example, assume you have an aortic valve replacement performed. A few years later, you experience chest pains and difficulty breathing. It turns out your valve is failing, and it needs to be replaced. You go to your physician, and they blame the symptoms on smoking. You go home, but you continue to suffer. One night, you wake up unable to breathe and in severe chest pain. The emergency room doctor carries out an EEG test, diagnoses the problem, and you get a new aortic valve. However, you’ve suffered months of unnecessary pain and are now faced with a substantial emergency room bill.
  
  
• Prescription medication errors. You’re suffering from an illness, and your doctor wrongly diagnoses you with a different illness. They prescribe a medication for it. Then you experience severe migraines, a common side effect of the prescribed medication. So, you continue to suffer in two ways. First, now you have migraines, and second, you still have discomfort from the effects of the undiagnosed illness. If the doctor had prescribed the proper medication, it’s possible your original condition would have been resolved, and you would have never dealt with headaches.
  
  
• Delayed diagnosis. Your brother goes to the emergency room because he has severe abdominal pain and is continually vomiting. The diagnosis is gastroenteritis (inflammation and irritation of the stomach or intestines). He’s prescribed a medication to prevent vomiting. It turns out he had appendicitis, not gastroenteritis. The delay in diagnosis meant that he had to have an open surgery instead of a procedure needing only a limited incision in the skin. This change in surgery costs your brother unnecessary additional pain, recovery time, and medical bills.
  
  

Proving Medical Malpractice

Under Florida law, doctors may be responsible for your injuries if they cause them by failing to provide “that level of care, skill, and treatment which, in light of all relevant surrounding circumstances, is recognized as acceptable and appropriate by reasonably prudent similar health care providers.”

Damages Available

If you’ve been wrongly diagnosed or had a delayed diagnosis of a medical condition, you may be able to recover damages. These include the medical expenses and lost income due to the consequences of the misdiagnosis.

Jacksonville Delayed Diagnosis Attorneys

If you believe that your doctor failed to diagnose your medical condition correctly or in a timely fashion, you may be entitled to damages. Here at The Doctor Lawyer Firm, our medical malpractice attorneys stand by to vigorously represent you and see that you get the compensation you deserve. Call us today at (833) 633-6257 or contact us with our online form.