What Is Failure to Diagnose?
Failure to diagnose occurs when a doctor is negligent or fails to take the steps necessary to determine the nature of your illness, which then causes you harm. This is because failure to diagnose can lead to incorrect or delayed treatment being administered, or even no treatment being administered at all.
Types
There are various types of medical diagnostic errors, of which failure to diagnose is one. Other types of diagnostic errors include:
Any of these medical diagnostic errors have the potential to injure, disable, or even cause death.
Causes of Failure to Diagnose
Common reasons for failure to diagnose include:
Statistically, the incidence of failure to diagnose is higher in emergency settings. This is due to the increased time pressure that doctors are under, which results in them having less time to investigate each patient adequately and draw up an accurate differential diagnosis.
Legal Matters
Because of the nature of human error, the law doesn’t hold doctors as legally responsible for all diagnostic errors. So, for you to pursue a medical malpractice lawsuit, you need to prove that a failure to diagnose occurred. This is done by you proving that:
It is important that you consult a medical malpractice lawyer when pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit such as this, as there are many difficulties associated with failure to diagnose cases.
This is because proving a doctor’s failure to diagnose can be very difficult for a multitude of reasons. Some of these reasons include the fact that:
Contact
If you believe that you or a family member may have experienced failure to diagnose, please contact the medical malpractice lawyers of Rosenburg, Minc, Falkoff & Wolff LLP in NYC today and speak to one of our medical malpractice attorneys.
When you are ready to talk, we are ready to listen. Call 212-344-1000 for a free, confidential consultation.
MANHATTAN LAW OFFICE
122 East 42nd Street Suite 3800
New York, NY 10168
Tel: 212-LAWYERS
Tel: 212-697-9280
QUEENS LAW OFFICE
8900 Sutphin Blvd Suite 501
Queens, NY 11435
Tel: (718) 399-3100
*By Appointment Only