Yes, in Hawaii, you can pursue a delayed diagnosis lawsuit if a doctor or medical professional’s delay in diagnosing your condition caused you harm. If you believe you or a loved one was injured by a delayed diagnosis and medical negligence, you should consult an attorney right away.
What Is Misdiagnosis Malpractice?
Misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis are medical terms often used interchangeably but, in fact, represent different types of medical negligence.
A delayed diagnosis or failure to diagnose happens when your doctor or medical professional fails to provide a diagnosis promptly, which worsens the illness or condition.
On the other hand, a misdiagnosis is when your doctor diagnoses you with the wrong illness or condition, usually leading to unnecessary treatment that could cause more harm.
Both can be the basis for a lawsuit, and under certain circumstances, these medical errors can occur in the same case.
Proving a Delayed Diagnosis Medical Negligence Lawsuit
Proving a delayed diagnosis medical negligence lawsuit can be more challenging than you might initially think. Not all delayed diagnoses rise to the level of medical malpractice. To be successful, an injured plaintiff must prove the delay caused their harm. Specifically, you must prove four essential elements:
- Duty of care. You must establish that a doctor-patient relationship existed and your doctor owed you a duty of care.
- Breach of duty. You must prove your physician breached their duty of care by deviating from the accepted medical standard of care in the same field. You must show what doctors in similar situations should have known and have acted differently.
- Causation. If you can establish the first two prongs, you must show that the doctor’s breach of duty or medical error caused you harm. It is not enough to say the doctor breached their duty; you must prove that the breach directly caused or worsened your injury.
- Damages. Finally, you must prove that you suffered damages due to your injury. You must show you sustained serious losses such as medical expenses, lost wages, disability, shortened life expectancy or pain and suffering.
While these elements may sound straightforward, proving them requires legal assistance, medical experts, and more. Your best chance of success is to hire an experienced medical malpractice attorney.
How a Lawyer Can Help Pursue a Delayed Diagnosis Claim
At Cronin, Fried, Sekiya, Kekina & Fairbanks, we can help you through a delayed or misdiagnosis claim.
There are requirements and procedures in a medical malpractice claim that your lawyer can assist with, including the following steps:
- Obtain a certificate of consultation. As a medical malpractice victim, you must geberally consult with at least one licensed physician knowledgeable or experienced in the same medical specialty as the healthcare professional named in the inquiry.
- File an inquiry with the Medical Inquiry and Conciliation Panel (MICP). In Hawaii, you must file an inquiry with the MICP to attempt to resolve and settle your claim through this non-binding, out-of-court process.
- File a lawsuit. If you cannot resolve your claim through the MICP process, you typically have two years from the date of medical negligence or its discovery, the MICP process may affect the time you have to initiate a lawsuit. Some other exceptions can shorten or lengthen this timeframe. It is important to consult with a medical malpractice lawyer to determine the time limit applicable to your claim.
- Go to trial. Lastly, we can take your case to trial if necessary to achieve your desired outcome.
As seasoned medical malpractice attorneys, we will help you through each step.
Delayed Diagnosis Malpractice Settlement
Most delayed diagnosis cases are settled outside of court. We are often asked what the average delayed diagnosis malpractice settlement is, and while it is not what most people want to hear, it can vary drastically from case to case.
Every case is unique, and your damages may differ from those of someone else, even under similar circumstances. However, there are a handful of factors to consider when calculating a fair settlement or even a jury award. These include:
- Medical malpractice insurance policy limits,
- The severity of the harm suffered as a result of the delay,
- Whether the delayed diagnosis caused permanent harm,
- Preexisting health conditions and life expectancy, and
- Ability to return to work and earn a living.
Upon meeting with your medical malpractice lawyer, they can discuss these factors with you and provide you with a better understanding of what you might expect from your settlement.
Delayed Diagnosis Examples
A delayed diagnosis can occur under various circumstances. Some are more harmful than others. For instance, a delayed cancer diagnosis can be fatal, while a delayed hairline fracture diagnosis will usually be less harmful.
Delayed diagnosis examples include:
- Dismissing patient symptoms as less severe,
- Failing to refer a patient to a specialist timely,
- Misinterpretation of test results or medical charts,
- Delaying the transfer of a patient to a more adequate facility,
- Delay in performing surgery,
- Failure to order additional testing after initial abnormal results,
- Poor communication among doctors and staff in the facility,
- Improper identification of symptoms,
- Ordering the wrong tests, and
- Failing to order necessary tests.
Remember that this is not an exhaustive list of delayed diagnosis examples, and it is possible that a different type of delay caused your injury or illness to worsen. A delayed diagnosis becomes potential medical malpractice when a doctor’s negligence prevents the patient from receiving the necessary treatment.
Signs of a Delayed Diagnosis
Delayed diagnosis injuries are often not immediately apparent, and it isn’t until some time has passed that you begin to question whether your doctor got it wrong. However, there are a handful of factors that may indicate a delay or misdiagnosis:
- You feel worse than you did before,
- You have had no improvement in symptoms since the treatment began,
- Your physician seems unsure and lacks confidence in the diagnosis,
- Your doctor is dismissive of the severity of your symptoms, and
- You see another doctor or medical professional and feel better after their prescribed treatment.
If any of these sound familiar, you may have suffered from a delayed diagnosis.
Delayed Diagnosis Lawsuit Lawyers
At Cronin, Fried, Sekiya, Kekina & Fairbanks, we are a premier Honolulu law firm with experienced attorneys on our team and ready to fight for you. Delayed diagnosis claims can be challenging to prove and require a professional, resourceful, knowledgeable law firm to succeed. We have decades of success to assist you. Contact us today for your free case evaluation.
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