Physicians negligently fail to diagnose conditions more often than most patients realize. Failure to diagnose and misdiagnosis are examples of medical malpractice that could impact a patient for life. Patients can suffer significant harm by not receiving the appropriate medications or treatments for their conditions. If you wish to hold a doctor accountable for misdiagnosis, contact a San Antonio misdiagnosis lawyer from the Law Offices of Maloney & Campolo. We can help you seek justice and fair compensation for your injuries.
Why Choose the Law Offices of Maloney & Campolo?
- Our priority is client success. We are not in the business of personal injury law for profits. Instead, we care about the people. Our firm has a family legacy of helping people in San Antonio that spans 75 years.
- Our firm knows how to get real results. Our San Antonio trial attorneys have obtained more than $150 million in settlements and verdicts for clients over the years. We win financial awards in 95% of the cases we accept.
- Our office operates on a contingency fee agreement. You will only pay our legal fees if we win. You will not have to pay any upfront costs. If we do win your case, we take our fees from your compensation award, not from your pocket.
Why Do You Need a Lawyer?
Medical malpractice is a complex area of personal injury law. While you may have the right to go up against a doctor or hospital in pursuit of compensation, Texas lawmakers do not make winning easy. You have to abide by tight deadlines, expert testimony requirements, and many other regulations for the courts to even consider your case. Then, you have to negotiate with insurance companies to fight for a fair settlement. A misdiagnosis lawyer can guide you through every step of the claims process, taking care of tasks on your behalf. Hiring a San Antonio medical malpractice attorney can maximize your odds of claim success.
Why Does Misdiagnosis Happen?
Negligent misdiagnosis is the outcome of a doctor’s neglect to fulfill the appropriate standard of patient care. While the law does not require all doctors to correctly diagnose patients 100% of the time, it does impose a reasonable expectation of quality care. A physician must follow accepted standards when diagnosing a patient. Any action or omission that falls outside this standard of care, resulting in patient injury, is medical malpractice.
- Breaching the accepted diagnosis method
- Ignoring patient symptoms
- Failing to look at the patient’s history
- Failing to order the correct diagnostic tests
- Misreading test results
- Failing to refer the patient to a specialist
It is a doctor’s duty to listen to a patient’s complaints, analyze symptoms, and use reasonable care to create a list of potential conditions. Then, the physician should eliminate items from the list using appropriate medical tests or referring the patient to a specialist. This process of eliminations should result in a diagnosis within a reasonable degree of accuracy. Any act of negligence during the diagnosis process could result in negligent misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose.
Who Is Liable?
If your physician is guilty of malpractice that led to a dangerous misdiagnosis, he or she could be independently liable for your damages. Many physicians operate as independent contractors. This generally prevents a health care center from absorbing liability for the physician’s actions. If the doctor was an employee, however, the entire facility may be vicariously liable for diagnoses errors. The facility may also be liable if it contributed to the malpractice, such as through inadequate training or poor communication. A product manufacturer could also be liable if faulty or defective equipment is responsible for misdiagnosis.
Contact Us for a Free Consultation in San Antonio
Understanding liability, the identity of the defendant, and what it will take to prove your medical malpractice claim in Texas takes help from a San Antonio misdiagnosis attorney. At the Law Offices of Maloney & Campolo, we offer our services free of charge if we do not win your case. Let us review your misdiagnosis claim during a free, confidential case evaluation in San Antonio. Request yours today.