In order to file a lawsuit for wrong diagnosis, patients must exhibit more than the fact that a misdiagnosis, wrong diagnosis, or delayed diagnosis did occur. In order to sustain a lawsuit for wrong diagnosis, patients must prove several other critical elements of a case, including the relationship between a doctor and patient, the level of negligence applicable to a certain wrong diagnosis, and whether the diagnosis caused further damages to a patient’s health. This being said, all wrong diagnosis claims possess differing aspects, and by reading more, a patient can determine if they possess a viable case relating to a delayed or misdiagnosis.
Proving Medical Malpractice Resulting from Wrong Diagnosis
A medical professional is not held legally liable for a misdiagnosis or wrong diagnosis. Rather, certain legal elements must be proven, in order to prove a patient has a viable malpractice suit based on a wrong diagnosis. The three main elements required for any successful wrong diagnosis based lawsuit include:
- A patient entered under the professional care of a physician in a formalized manner, which by law, requires the physician to provide a standard duty of care to the patient
- The physician performed negligently while treating, in this case diagnosing, a patient, contrary to the reasonable standards required by their profession and specialty
- The negligent diagnosis offered by a physician caused actual health damages to a patient
The ability to file suit against a given physician will depend on the determination regarding whether a doctor was negligent in making their diagnosis, and probably more importantly than that, the fact that a patient did incur actual health damages resulting from the misdiagnosis.
Determining Physician Negligence
In most cases, any doctor providing services to a patient will enter into a patient-physician relationship, which will hold the doctor liable for negligence and other claims. Additionally, damages, especially those resulting from medical health problems and other bodily injury, are relatively easy to exhibit. However, the crux of many wrong diagnosis lawsuits seeks to determine one important element: Did the doctor perform negligently, based on a standard of reasonable care.
As a general guideline for proving diagnostic error, a patient will seek to demonstrate that any other physician under the same circumstances, when confronted with the same diagnostic information and tools, would have reached a different conclusion. Physicians, when making a diagnosis, often rely on an organized process of probability based on the information at hand, to compile what is known as a differential diagnosis list. From this list, physicians will then perform tests to confirm or rule a certain diagnosis until one clear, definitive diagnosis remains. For patients and their legal counsel, proving the following elements will exhibit negligence in a defendant physician, including:
- A reasonably competent and skilled physician, working in the same scenario, would have included the correct diagnosis in their differential diagnosis lists
- A reasonably competent and skilled physician would have included the correct diagnosis in their differential diagnosis lists, which the physician named as a defendant did, but this hypothetical reasonable physician would have continued their investigation further to confirm or deny a possible diagnosis, which the named defendant physician did not do
Getting Legal Help with Wrong Diagnosis Lawsuits
Many factors play into the determination of negligence, which may not directly involve the physician themselves, but rather other technicians or equipment providers supplying information to the physician making a diagnosis. In other cases, such as emergency rooms, urgent care requirements supersede the ability of physician to conduct diagnostic tests and other investigations, before administering some form of medical help. Again, the determination of negligence is made based on the reasonable, skilled, and competent response of any other physician with the same skill set in a given situation. Though a thoroughly defined legal standard, this process can be highly case-specific and subjective. Having an attorney intervene and prepare any medical malpractice case, including ones relating to misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis, is essential to garnering a favorable outcome for the patient.
