Factors That Affect Your Medical Malpractice Case

Being a victim of medical malpractice can have lasting effects on your physical and mental health. Should you choose to file a lawsuit against your provider, you and your attorney will need to prove that genuine malpractice occurred. There are four factors that will affect the outcome of your medical malpractice case: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Let’s look at each factor in more depth.

Duty of Care

Physicians, surgeons, and other medical professionals must abide by a medical standard of care for each of their patients. This standard may differ depending on their training; for example, you wouldn’t expect the same care from a nursing assistant that you would from a neurosurgeon.

Work with your attorney to analyze how the malpractice occurred. What kind of treatment did you seek? Which medical professional had a duty of care to you that went ignored?

Breach of Duty

Next, you and your lawyer will need to prove a breach of that duty of care. Somebody involved in your care behaved negligently or carelessly, and it led to a poor health outcome for you. Common breaches of medical duty of care include:

• Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis
• Surgical error
• Negligent care during recovery
• Incorrect administration of anesthesia

Causation of Injury or Illness

This element is often one of the hardest to prove in medical malpractice cases. Your medical malpractice attorney in Boise, ID, must conclusively link the healthcare professional’s actions (or inactions) to your illness or injury. They’ll need to prove that the physician, surgeon, nurse, or other professional directly caused a negative health outcome for you.

Proving causation can be difficult because the human body is complex. Sometimes, medical professionals do their best to treat you, and you get sicker anyway. In addition, honest mistakes may not constitute malpractice!

Measurable Damages

Finally, you’ll have to prove that you suffered financially due to your ordeal. To prove damages, which will be helpful in determining your settlement amount, hang on to every medical bill related to the incident in question.

Additionally, if you had to take significant time off work or quit your job due to your illness or injury, you could lose a significant amount of income. You may even have a reduced earning capacity moving forward, depending on the severity of the problem. This evidence will be helpful in determining the effects of the alleged malpractice.

As you partner with an attorney to work on your medical malpractice case, keep in mind the four factors that will affect the outcome. To prove malpractice, you’ll have to show that a healthcare professional directly caused an illness or injury that damaged your quality of life.