Hospital Negligence
Sometimes, when you go into a surgery, you know that you'll have to have follow-up treatments in the form of more surgeries or other hospital treatments - and that's okay. Your doctor may have a complete long-term care plan for you to follow. That said, unplanned returns to the hospital are not a good thing. When that happens, your doctor might be liable for medical malpractice. This isn't always the case, but it is important to evaluate the situation as soon as you are feeling better. If your doctor's negligence caused an unplanned return to the hospital, contact a medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible.
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Why might you have to have unplanned follow-up treatment? Usually, malpractice situations happen for one of three reasons. First, your doctor may have been tired while treating you. Hospitals often have doctors on call for days at a time, and some doctors work with little to no sleep, creating dangerous situations in the operating room and when making important decisions. A second reason for complications? Doctors sometimes skip steps to save time. Usually, certain steps in the protocol can be hurried through with no negative consequences, but every once in the while, this leads to a major complication. A third reason that you may have to return to the hospital is that there was a miscommunication at the hospital. With thousands of patients, hospitals sometimes mix up charts or read the chart or prescription incorrectly. If a patient has multiple doctors, there could also be a miscommunication as to who is handling which treatment, which means that you could be treated twice or not treated at all.
You might have to return to the hospital to deal with any number of complications. Some medical malpractice situations include leading surgical items inside of a patient, overdose of medication, lack of the correct medication, drug interactions, mistakes during surgery (like cuts or tears in the wrong places), and misdiagnoses. The real danger here is that if you go home thinking everything is OK, you could die because you aren't at the hospital getting the care you really need for your condition. In addition, when you have to return to the hospital for treatment that could have been avoided, you'll face double the medical bills.
Some procedures aren't covered by insurance, and you may not have medical insurance coverage at all, making the second trip to the hospital financially impossible. While an emergency room won't turn you away for inability to pay in most cases, you could be facing huge debts when you are discharged, which can be extremely overwhelming, and unnecessarily so, since doctors should have done the right thing the first time around.
Remember, a medical malpractice case is based on both responsibility and neglect. Sometimes, unplanned return trips to the hospital happen because the body has been through very difficult medical procedure. Doctors can't always plan how the body will react to something. In many cases, as careful as a medical team is, they won't be able to protect the patient from the need for more medical treatment. To be liable for medical malpractice, the doctor has to have been negligent.
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As a patient, though, you have the right to explore your legal options and really investigate why you had to return due to complications. Sometimes, the case is cut and dry. Other times, you may not be sure of the best option. That's where a good medical malpractice lawyer comes into play. A personal injury lawyer who has experience with medical malpractice can look at the basic information and determine whether or not you have grounds to sue a doctor, medical team, pharmacist, or hospital for medical malpractice.
