Failure to treat or stabilize a medical condition is not given as much attention as other types of medical malpractice such as surgical errors, birth injuries and wrongful death. Despite this, failure to treat or delayed diagnosis can have dire consequences and even result in death.
Today, we invited our Hawaii failure to treat attorney from the Kurzban, Tetzeli & Pratt P.A. to shed light on the truth about doctors and hospitals failing to properly treat or diagnose patients in a timely manner and how this might entitle you to compensation.
What is a failure to treat?
When an individual in Hawaii or elsewhere in the United States seeks treatment, their treating physician will have to establish the cause of the disease, injury, or illness.
More often than not, doctors and physicians are capable of detecting the culprit behind the patient’s medical condition in a timely manner, which increases the likelihood that the patient will recover.
But sometimes, failure to properly diagnose, misdiagnosis, failure to treat and stabilize do occur in the healthcare industry. And most of the time, there is someone among the medical professionals who can be held liable for his/her negligence, which resulted in the failure to treat a patient.
Examples of failure to treat patients
Our experienced failure to treat attorney in Hawaii outlines examples of this type of medical error as follows:
- Failure to perform required and necessary medical tests and analysis to determine the cause of the condition
- Failure to monitor the condition
- Failure to treat a condition or symptoms due to the unreasonable belief that the condition or symptoms are not worthy of testing or treating
- Reaching a diagnosis too fast, because several vital factors have not been taken into account, such as the patient’s medical history or genetic information
- Unreasonably delaying diagnosis
- Failure to refer the patient to other medical professionals who have more knowledge and experience in treating this particular condition
- Failure to treat a medical condition, illness or injury in a timely manner or at all
- Failure to provide the patient with the entire spectrum of medical treatments available for his/her particular condition
- Failure to treat due to lack of insurance
- Failure to stabilize the patient due to the healthcare provider’s negligence
- Failure to diagnose and treat heart failure, stroke, or internal bleeding in the emergency room
- Failure to communicate clearly the important facts about the condition to the patient and/or other medical professionals treating the patient
- Failure to adhere to accepted standards of care (Meaning: if another competent and skilled doctor with a similar background and specialty would not have made the medical error that led to the injury or death under the same circumstances, your doctor failed to adhere to accepted standards of care).
Failure to treat as a type of medical malpractice
Even when a treatment is delayed by days or even hours, delayed diagnosis and failure to treat can result in severe damage or even death. “This is especially true when a doctor fails to diagnose and treat a heart attack, stroke, and internal bleeding,” says our Hawaii failure to treat attorney.
When confronted, doctors who delayed diagnosis or failed to treat your medical condition will shift the blame onto you or other medical professionals or argue that other forms of treatment or starting treatment sooner would not have made a difference in the outcome (injury, illness or death).
Therefore, it is important to get legal help from a lawyer to collect sufficient evidence of failure to treat and file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the liable parties. Contact the Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt, P.A. – recovery law center in Hawaii to speak about your particular case. Call at 808-736-5035, or fill out this contact form to get a free consultation.