Indianapolis Medical Malpractice Lawyers

Filing Claims After Harmful Medical Errors

Indianapolis Medical Malpractice Lawyers

You should be able to rely on a medical provider to do what is best for your health and help prevent further injuries, illnesses, and other complications. Yet medical errors have been listed among the leading causes of deaths in the United States by various studies, including one now-famous John Hopkins Medicine study released in 2016. If you were hurt by a doctor, nurse, surgeon, pharmacist, or any other type of medical staff, it is important to know that your case is not a “one-in-a-million mistake” that you should just overlook. It is more likely part of a much larger problem that needs to be addressed through legal action, including personal injury claims.

Tabor Law Firm, LLP and our Indianapolis medical malpractice attorneys are ready to fight for the recovery you deserve. When a medical mistake takes you off your feet, the financial consequences can be dire. Not only will your medical bills pile up, but you won’t be able to work to pay them. As your chosen Indianapolis medical malpractice lawyers, it will be our priority to make certain your case is built correctly, handled properly, and gives you a chance at being fully compensated by the liable parties.

We want to hear from you. Call (317) 236-9000 today to start your claim with our Indianapolis med mal attorney, or visit our Video Center to see what we have to say about medical malpractice.

Examples of Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice can take many forms. It can occur whenever a medical provider makes a mistake that can or does lead to a patient’s injury or prolonged suffering. With this said, there are some forms of medical malpractice that tend to show up in lawsuits more than others.

Some of the most common examples of medical malpractice are:

  • Failure to check patient history: Before prescribing a treatment or completing a diagnosis, a patient’s medical history should be thoroughly reviewed by the attending doctor. Without a review, treatments could overlap or conflict and potentially cause worse issues.
  • Diagnosis failure: When an ailment is not diagnosed at all or diagnosed as a different issue, it can constitute medical malpractice.
  • Wrong medication: Prescription errors are another common form of medical malpractice that can happen in the doctor’s office or the pharmacy. Patients who are given the wrong medication or the wrong dosage of the right drug can be put at risk of health complications.
  • Laboratory or result errors: Many health concerns require laboratory testing to get a clear diagnosis, which introduces more opportunities for mistakes to be made. A lab technician can incorrectly complete a test, or a doctor can misread the results.
  • No aftercare instructions: Patients need to be told how to care for themselves once they are no longer in the hospital or clinic. Inadequate aftercare instructions unfairly put people in danger of inadvertently worsening their conditions.
  • Early release: Similar to aftercare issues are release or discharge problems, such as allowing a patient to leave hospital care before it is safe to do so.
  • Surgical errors: Surgeons are sometimes the source of medical malpractice. Surgical errors can include operating on the wrong body part, cutting a nerve or artery accidentally, leaving a medical instrument inside a patient, and more.

What is a Medical Never Event?

Some forms of medical malpractice are caused by such an egregious mistake that they have been coined as “never events,” as in it is something that should never happen when a normal level of care is taken. Never events are usually obvious mistakes that anyone can identify, not just medical experts, and they often cause serious health complications for the affected patients. When a never event occurs – such as amputating the wrong limb in a surgical theater – the reliability and reputation of entire medical groups can be called into question.

Four Ds of Medical Malpractice

Many law firms shy away from medical malpractice claims because they are difficult to prove, fight, and win. The difficulty of these claims is caused by a myriad of legalities and regulations that tend to favor medical providers over patients. Of note, for a medical malpractice claim to be considered valid enough for a court to review the claim, it must meet four rigorous prerequisites.

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  • Duty: The defending medical provider must have had a duty of care owed to the claimant. Without an established doctor-patient relationship, the claimant might not have a starting point for their case.
  • Deviation: The defendant must have deviated from acceptable medical standards and safety measures in a way that another medical provider reasonably would not have done if they were in the same situation.
  • Direct: The deviation caused by the defendant must have caused some sort of direct harm to the patient, such as causing a new injury or worsening a preexisting one. When medical malpractice only fails to treat an injury or illness but does not cause or worsen one, the legalities gray and the case gets more difficult for the plaintiff.
  • Damage: The harm experienced by the patient must be measurable in terms of economic or noneconomic damage experienced by them. Medical bills and wages lost due to missing work are often at the center of medical malpractice claims, but pain and suffering damages can also be significant or play a central role in a claim.

Damages Available in a Medical Malpractice Claim

Our medical malpractice legal team would be happy to help you determine if your claim meets the four Ds required to file. If it does, we can discuss the damages you might be owed by the medical provider who caused your injuries. We can work with various experts to get a full idea of your injuries, how long they will affect you, and what amount of compensation will be required to fairly end your case.

Your medical malpractice claim might include damages that help pay for:

  • All medical bills associated with your injury
  • Prescription and aftercare costs
  • Wages you lost due to missing work
  • Lowered earning capacity due to a disability
  • Adjustments to your living space, like wheelchair ramps
  • Pain and suffering caused by your health complications

We Fight When Others Won’t – Contact Us Now

Whereas other law firms are often known to step away from medical malpractice cases, Tabor Law Firm, LLP is known for the opposite. We show the same tenacity and drive when handling a medical malpractice claim as we do any other injury case because we believe every single client should have the opportunity to pursue deserved compensation, not just those with “easy” cases. If you want a team of Indianapolis medical malpractice lawyers you can lean on when times get tough, then you want us on your side, at your back, and standing for you in and out of court.

To arrange a free consultation, call our team at (317) 236-9000.

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