What You Need to Know Before Filing a Medical Malpractice Claim

Medical malpractice occurs when a health care professional acts negligently while performing healthcare services that results in injury or harm to their patient. This can include an error in diagnosis, treatment, aftercare, or in other medical-related services. Malpractice can leave you with lifelong consequences and expensive bills. If you or someone you know is looking to file a claim, check out these quick facts before you contact a medical malpractice attorney:

To File a Claim

When you contact a medical malpractice lawyer to file a claim, there are a few things you should be prepared to present. You must have proof of a patient-physician relationship, be able to prove the doctor acted negligently, and that the doctor’s negligence resulted in a specific injury. Without these elements, you will be unable to file your malpractice claim.

Pre-Litigation Screening

The state of Idaho requires that all medical malpractice claims must go through a screening panel to give both parties an opportunity to resolve the dispute outside of court. However, the plaintiff can still take the claim to court regardless of the panel’s findings if they choose to.

Statute of Limitations

Statute of limitations refers to the amount of time that can pass for an individual to report a crime. If a crime is reported after the statute of limitations has expired, the report will have no legal standing. In other words, if too much time has passed since the crime was committed, the plaintiff will not be able to bring the issue to court. The state of Idaho has the following statute of limitations:

• Medical malpractice claim: two years
• Personal injury claim: two years
• Property damage claim: three years

Common Myths

There are a lot of myths that permeate this aspect of the law. Don’t believe these common myths before filing your medical malpractice claim:

These claims are frivolous:
A study performed by the New England School Of Medicine found that only 3% of cases studied were not attributed to medical care received.

Hospitals report incidents that compromise patient safety:
A study by the Department of Health and Human Services found that hospital incident systems failed to report or record 86% of incidents that compromised patient safety.

True Malpractice Is Rare;
The Institute of Medicine found that between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die each year as a result of medical malpractice in the United States.

Additional Considerations

The purpose of the article/blog is strictly to inform. It is not to be construed as legal advice and is for generic/broad use only. You should always seek advice from an attorney for all legal matters. For more information, don’t hesitate to reach out to Rossman Law today.