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Failure to Treat or Diagnose Attorneys in Detroit, Michigan

When you visit a doctor or go to a hospital, you expect to receive qualified and skilled medical care. Unfortunately, not all patients receive proper and timely care, resulting in a delayed or wrong diagnosis and inadequate treatment.

While anyone can make mistakes, medical professionals are held to a high standard of care. When a doctor makes a mistake, a patient may be able to hold them responsible for failure to treat or diagnose.

At Ratton Law Group PC, our medical malpractice attorneys help patients and their families pursue fair compensation for injuries and deaths that occur from improper, missed, or delayed diagnosis or treatment. Our failure to treat or diagnose attorneys in Detroit, Michigan, are well-versed in identifying instances of medical malpractice and are dedicated to holding medical professionals responsible for deviations from accepted standards of care.

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Types of Diagnostic Errors

Some types of diagnostic mistakes are more common than others. Below are some of the types of diagnostic errors that may constitute medical malpractice:

  • Misdiagnosis, or wrong diagnosis. As the name implies, misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor says that their patient has a particular medical condition when, in fact, the patient has a different one. An erroneous or incorrect diagnosis can have serious consequences.

  • Missed diagnosis. This type of diagnostic error occurs when a doctor fails to identify a medical condition. As a result, the patient does not receive any treatment or diagnosis after telling the doctor about their symptoms and complaints.

  • Delayed diagnosis. In the case of delayed diagnosis, a patient’s condition goes undiagnosed for an unreasonable amount of time. This type of error may occur when a doctor fails to order necessary tests in a timely manner.

  • Failure to diagnose a related or unrelated condition. Even if a doctor makes the correct diagnosis, they may fail to diagnose a related or unrelated condition.

These are not the only types of diagnostic errors that may result in significant harm and impact patient outcomes. If you believe that a doctor’s diagnostic error worsened your condition or otherwise affected your health or life, contact our medical malpractice attorneys at Ratton Law Group PC to explore your legal options.

Proving Negligence in Duty of Care

Medical professionals are not held liable for all diagnostic errors. There are several elements that a patient or surviving family members must prove in order to prove a doctor’s negligence in failure to provide an accurate and timely diagnosis or prescribe proper treatment:

  1. The existence of a doctor-patient relationship;

  2. The doctor’s deviation from the accepted standards of care; and

  3. The doctor’s failure to treat or diagnose resulted in actual damages to the patient.

Proving negligence in medical malpractice cases can be complicated because the plaintiff (the party who files a lawsuit) must prove that another competent medical professional would not have made the same error under similar circumstances. A skilled attorney can help you gather the necessary evidence to seek to prove the elements of a medical malpractice case.

What the Other Side Will Argue in
Failure to Treat or Diagnose Cases

In failure to treat or diagnose cases, you cannot hold a medical professional responsible for resulting harm unless you can prove that they deviated from the accepted standards of care. The medical professional and hospital are likely to raise several defenses in an attempt to avoid liability.

Some of the common arguments that you may hear from doctors and hospitals in failure to treat or diagnose cases include:

  • The patient withheld important information about their condition

  • The patient waited too long to get tests done

  • The patient gave misleading or inaccurate information to the doctor

  • No other competent doctor would have provided an accurate diagnosis and/or proper treatment under similar circumstances

When a doctor gives an inaccurate or missed diagnosis or fails to order appropriate treatment in a timely manner, they have committed medical malpractice.

Failure to Treat or Diagnose Attorneys in Detroit, MI

Failure to treat or diagnose can have devastating consequences. If you or someone you love did not receive proper treatment or diagnosis, it’s important to explore your legal options. Get a free consultation with our failure to treat or diagnose attorneys at Ratton Law Group PC to determine if you have a valid medical malpractice case. Reach out to our office in Detroit, Michigan, to get immediate legal guidance.