Our Philadelphia Medical Diagnosis Error Lawyers frequently handle cases arising out of injuries caused by diagnosis mistakes. Negligent diagnosis errors are one of the most common types of Medical Malpractice. These errors generally occur in one of two ways. A doctor may either diagnose the patient to have a disease or illness other than the one the patient is actually suffering from (Misdiagnosis) or fail to diagnose the patient at all until the disease has advanced to a more serious stage (Delayed Diagnosis).
In either case, the effects on a patient’s health can be devastating or even deadly.
Delays in Medical Diagnosis
Sometimes, a doctor may negligently fail to detect a patient’s illness for months or years, only to finally diagnose it when it is too late to stop its progression or after irreversible damage has been done.
The early detection of many illnesses (including chronic kidney disease; breast, colon, and other cancers; diabetes; hypertension; and heart disease) can be crucial to warding off serious complications and disease advancement or to saving a patient’s life.
Medical Diagnosis Errors
A Misdiagnosis will also cause a delay in the correct diagnosis—along with the negative consequences of the delay. A Misdiagnosis can also cause damage in addition to the damage caused by the delay. This can occur when medications and other treatments are ordered for the wrongly diagnosed illness and the treatments cause the patient additional harm.
While some diagnosis errors are not considered medical malpractice, errors that could have been prevented with reasonable and competent medical care can form the basis for a Medical Error or Negligence claim.
Examples of diagnosis-related errors that may be considered medical malpractice include the following:
- Failing to test a patient for certain diseases and illnesses when the patient is in a high-risk category for the illness
- Ordering the wrong tests or misinterpreting the results of ordered tests
- Failing to listen to a patient’s physical complaints or failing to take the patient seriously
- Failing to recognize signs or symptoms of a disease or illness
- Failing to consider a patient’s family history, medication use, previous illnesses and surgeries, and other risk factors
- Negligently diagnosing a patient with the wrong disease
- Negligently failing to diagnose a patient’s illness until after the illness has caused irreversible damage
Feldman & Pinto’s Medical Diagnosis Error Lawyers
Feldman & Pinto’s Medical Diagnosis Error Lawyers have been successfully litigating cases for people who have been injured due to medical diagnosis errors for over two decades. If you have been injured or a loved one has died because of a negligent error in diagnosis, contact our experienced Medical Negligence Lawyers today for a free consultation.