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Coming Soon..........List Of Medical Malpractice LAWYERS!

General Introduction
How big is the problem? Medical malpractice is a bigger problem than most people want to admit. Approximately 80,000 people die in the United States each year due partly to medical malpractice (based on an extensive study entitled "Patients, Doctors and Lawyers: Medical Injury, Malpractice Litigation, and Patient Compensation in New York," published by the Harvard Medical Practice Study in 1990, a report to the State of New York). These statistics have since been confirmed by other studies performed in California and New Jersey. Meanwhile, a RAND Corporation Study regarding health care quality by Mark A. Schuster, M.D., Ph.D., Elizabeth A. McGlynn, Ph.D, and Robert H. Brook, M.D., Sc.D. revealed that autopsy studies showed rates between 35 and 40% of missed diagnoses with most resulting in death. Numerically, this is more than three fully loaded jumbo jets crashing every week with no survivors. That number of airplane crashes would mobilize many commissions, government investigations, and a huge effort to prevent the crashes. Unfortunately, since medical malpractice injuries happen separately and privately, the effect is not the same.

Even more disturbing, these numbers are only based on hospital statistics. They do not include deaths from missed diagnoses or medical negligence that occurred in clinics, private doctors' offices, or other treatment facilities.

Claims filed: At the same time, surprisingly few claims are filed. Only 2 percent of people injured by physicians' negligence seek compensation through a lawsuit (according to a 1991 article in the New England Journal of Medicine). A separate report from the Harvard School of Public Health ("Harvard Medical Practice Study") found slightly higher numbers. Their research found that only one in eight patients that suffers due to medical negligence ever files a lawsuit and only one in sixteen recovers any damages. However, despite the slightly higher percentage, the study concluded, "Our data make clear, then, that the focus of legislative concern should be that the malpractice system is too inaccessible, rather than too accessible, to the victims of negligent medical treatment."

Insurance: Many people do not realize that their physician is not required to be insured. If not insured, there is little hope of collecting compensation if the doctor injures an innocent patient through malpractice. For details on how insurance premiums have greatly exceeded insurance payouts for many years, see Insurance Statistics. (Summary: for the period 1984 through 2002, Hawai`i medical malpractice insurers took in $350.8 million in premiums, and paid out only $174.6 million in claims.) According to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, medical malpractice insurance premiums amount to less than 1% of health costs.

Local regulation: There is little effective regulation of quality by the state licensing board. Only about 2,000 doctors (one-third of one percent) are disciplined each year. Usually, the charges involve substance abuse or financial fraud. Rarely is a physician disciplined for injuring a patient through medical malpractice.

Answers to few questions you might have

If I think medical malpractice might have happened, but I don't know, what should I do?
First, be aware of the statute of limitations. You may have a valid claim, but if you wait too long, the claim is lost even if it is valid. The general rule is that the claim must be filed within two years after the malpractice, or two years after you reasonably should have known there was malpractice. However, there are a number of tricky exceptions, so do not give up just because two years may have passed already. As a general rule, delay helps the other side more than it helps you.

Second, you can generally forget about evaluating the claim yourself, or trying to "work it out" with the doctor or clinic or hospital. Usually, the "real" decision-maker is the doctor's insurance carrier (if your doctor is even insured, some are not), and the doctor's attorney. These people are not paid to help you, or to be candid with you. They are paid to defeat your claim. You need an experienced professional to help you evaluate your claim. Without an attorney, the doctor's attorney and insurance company usually will not take you seriously.

Contact us, or any other law firm experienced in medical malpractice cases. There is no charge for an initial evaluation of your case. These cases are very different from other kinds of personal injury cases such as car accidents. Special rules and laws apply, and special tactics and strategies are important. If your case has any merit at all, an experienced attorney should be willing to sit down with you and explain all your options, without charge. Then you can make a full and informed decision about whether or not you want to go forward.

Generally, what must I prove? In every medical malpractice case, you must be able to prove three things: (a) breach of the standard of care; (b) causation, and (c) damages.
Breach of the standard of care. You must prove that the doctor made a mistake -- a mistake which a reasonable and prudent doctor would not have made under the same circumstances. Generally, this requires an expert witness (another doctor) to come forward and testify that your doctor did make a mistake. As you can imagine, this is not an easy process, since doctors do not like to testify against each other. Finding good expert witnesses is the critical part of most medical malpractice cases.

Causation. In addition to showing the doctor made a mistake, you have to show the doctor's mistake caused an injury to you. To look at it another way, the reason people go to see doctors is because they are sick. Even the best medical treatment may be useless. So, you have to be able to show that IF the doctor had not made the mistake, then the patient would have gotten better, or would not have been injured as much. Again, it is critical to get an expert witness who is willing to testify to this.

Damages. Finally, you have to show what damages resulted from the doctor's mistakes. This could be anything from death to serious injury. It may include lost wages, medical bills, agony, mental suffering, or the loss of a loved one. Often, economists and other experts are necessary to calculate and present these damages in court.

What is the process of a medical malpractice claim? Generally, a medical malpractice claim follows a series of steps.
Get the medical records. It is usually impossible to accurately evaluate a medical malpractice claim without obtaining all relevant medical records. Unfortunately, the hospitals and doctors often charge high rates for obtaining these records. Charges of 50 cents to $1.00 per page, or more, are common.

If a patient . . . requests copies of his or her medical records, the copies shall be made available to the patient unless in the opinion of the health care provider it would be detrimental to the health of the patient to obtain the records. If the health care provider is of the opinion that release of the records to the patient would be detrimental to the health of the patient, the health care provider shall advise the patient that copies of the records will be made available to the patient's attorney upon presentation of a proper authorization signed by the patient.

If an attorney for a patient asks a health care provider for copies of the patient's medical records and presents a proper authorization from the patient for the release of the information, complete and accurate copies of the records shall be given to the attorney within a reasonable time not to exceed ten working days.

In the case of a deceased person, a personal representative... may obtain copies...

If no personal representative has been appointed, the deceased person's next of kin... without court order, may obtain copies of or may authorize the health care provider to release copies of the deceased person's medical records.

Reasonable costs incurred by a health care provider in making copies of medical records shall be borne by the requesting person.

Expert opinion. After getting the medical records, an experienced attorney can often make a preliminary evaluation; however, more often, the attorney will want to discuss the records with an expert witness, or send the records to a potential expert witness for evaluation. This is where the high costs of a medical malpractice case really begin. (A well-qualified expert witness will often charge $250.00 to $400.00 per hour to review all the records and render an opinion, and there is no guaranty the first one will testify for you. Sometimes it takes 2-3 experts before you find one who is willing to testify for you.) However, usually your attorney will "front" or pay these costs for you, and only get them back if they win the case through a settlement or trial verdict.

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