Failure to Diagnose and Missed Diagnosis Lawyers in St. Louis

What Happens if a Doctor Doesn’t Diagnose My Condition?

When a doctor or other type of medical practitioner fails to diagnose a patient properly, it can lead to potentially catastrophic consequences. Serious medical conditions that are left undiagnosed can rapidly become worse, and patients may even miss the window for successful treatment. Or, they might develop complications that make a full recovery even harder.

We count on doctors’ expertise to guide our health decision, and when one lets us down, it’s natural to have questions. We are here to help you find answers as well as receive compensation to cover your treatment costs and other damages.

If you have suffered a worsening of your medical condition or other maladies due to a failure to diagnose, reach out to our attorneys now at (800) 391-4318. We are here to help you understand your legal options and take action.

Proving Liability After a Failure to Diagnose

A doctor failing to provide the right diagnosis right away is not the sole proof needed to win a lawsuit. To bring a successful action, you must prove that your doctor was actually negligent in their failure and that the delay in receiving treatment caused damages that you would not have otherwise faced.

Proving a Standard of Care

The easiest way to show a doctor’s negligence in a misdiagnosis is to prove that another doctor in the same position would have made the correct diagnosis. Sometimes medical conditions do not present as expected; without certain significant symptoms, a doctor may have no way to identify a certain ailment. Proving that a competent doctor could have made the diagnosis from the information given can support your claim regarding your physician’s negligence. Our team can help you connect with a medical expert to make your case.

Examining Test Procedures and Outcomes

If a technician made a mistake while processing a test or a doctor misread the results, you may be able to use this to show how negligence played a role in the missed or delayed diagnosis. However, these things are often difficult to spot on your own—if you’re even allowed to see raw test data. Working with our skilled and experienced attorney team can be the best way to obtain medical insight into questions like these. We can investigate and partner with experts to provide analysis regarding a test’s accuracy and applicability.

Itemizing Damages

Sometimes a late diagnosis does not make much of a difference in the care a patient needs and their outcome. Other times, in cases of lethal diseases like cancer, losing time can be a serious setback in a patient’s treatment. Some treatment approaches that may be less harmful to the patient are only appropriate during the early stages of the disease, meaning a missed diagnosis could lead to a therapy that has serious side effects. The approach used against later-stage ailments might also be more costly and time-intensive than other methods.

By providing analysis of the severity and progression of a disease at the time you should have been diagnosed versus when you actually received the correct verdict, you can make an argument that your doctor’s failure to identify an ailment caused tangible damages.

How We Can Help You After a Missed Diagnosis

Failure to diagnose can lead to hardship that is not only physical, mental, and emotional, but financial as well. Serious medical conditions often require expensive treatment or therapy, and the victim may lose wages due to being unable to work. An attorney can help you avoid the adverse effects of a failure to diagnose by fighting for due compensation on your behalf.

Meyerkord & Kurth has been practicing personal injury law for many years. We are well-versed in all manner of medical malpractice cases and have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts. We want to help you get the best outcome possible if a doctor’s negligence harmed your health.

Contact us today at (800) 391-4318 to speak with our experienced trial attorneys. We are here for you.