Can You Sue a Doctor or Hospital for Diagnosis Errors?
Delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis and failure to diagnose and treat are all aspects of diagnosis error, which constitutes medical malpractice. If a serious injury or death resulted from a failure to diagnose or a misdiagnosis, the surviving family members may be able to sue the medical professionals responsible, including —
- Physicians
- Specialists
- Hospitals
- Private practices
Is a diagnosis error always medical malpractice?
Most physicians will consider a patient’s symptoms and list all possible medical issues that could present as the patient does. Then, the physician runs tests to narrow down the list by elimination. This method of differential diagnosis nearly always produces an accurate and timely diagnosis, but mistakes do happen.
Consider the most common illnesses to be misdiagnosed:
- Cancer
- Heart attack
- Aortic dissection
- Stroke
- Pulmonary embolism
Patients whose diagnoses are delayed often do not fare as well as they might have if they’d been timely diagnosed. For instance, colon cancer, breast cancer, and melanoma are often treatable when detected early. But if those cancers are given time to grow unchecked, they can spread throughout the body and cause a preventable death.
Who is at risk?
Anyone who seeks medical care is at risk of a misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose and treat a potentially life-threatening disease.
For legal help after suffering the consequences of a diagnosis error, call Rich & Rich, P.C. at 212-406-0440 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation.