Medical malfeasance, medical negligence and medical malpractice are all the same thing. They refer to a medical professional providing substandard treatment to a patient.
Medical professionals and administrations are expected to follow a select medical standard of care. This standard expects that the health care professional would perform the level of care that another professional would perform, having been provided with the same training and experience and would have completed the procedure under the same circumstances.
Providing negligent treatment could lead to chronic pain, injury or death for the patient in question. These medical errors occur in diagnosis, treatment, recovery, the dosing of medications or an error due to poor health care management.
The Medical Malpractice Center discovered that patients file15,000-19,000 medical malpractice suits every year.
What constitutes medical malpractice?
A medical malpractice suit can only be considered if the medical error meets the following factors:
- The health care professional deviated from the expected level of care (explained above)
- The patient must have experienced an injury due to malfeasance and must be able to prove the error caused the injury
- The error caused lasting damage and led to considerable consequences
- These “damages” and “consequences” could include: suffering, chronic hardship, chronic pain, loss of income or disability
Proving a “breach of duty”
Another hill to climb when pursuing compensation for medical negligence is to confirm that the physician’s negligent acts led to your injury. In order to do this, you must be able to prove four elements..
- A professional duty is owed to the patient
- The physician failed to live up to the medical standard of care
- The medical error caused the injury
- The error resulted in lasting damages
Pursuing a medical malpractice case is full of adverse situations to overcome. The insurance companies do not want to provide a settlement, but it can result in a win, and compensation is recoverable.
