Medical Malpractice Claim with Minimal Medical Bills

Answer:

When we have clients come see us about potential medical malpractice claims, there is some investigation and evaluation that needs to be done as to the significance of medical expenses associated with the claim. That is because medical malpractice claims are very expensive to bring. While it’s not necessary to have extensive medical expenses associated with the claim, it certainly does help. If you have a claim that doesn’t have much in the way of medical expenses associated with it, you certainly have to look at it with a skeptical eye, especially if it’s not a wrongful death case.

In general, medical malpractice cases are very involved. They are very evidence-based. These cases generally require multiple expert witnesses, which is very expensive. They can take a long time to work up. You don’t want to pursue a medical malpractice claim where the value of compensation for the injury might top out at $50,000 when you expect to spend $75,000 just to work up the case. That’s not a good result for anyone and that’s not a good use of anyone’s time. What we want to look at are your injuries and the impact that they have. There are some injuries or some issues where there’s clear negligence on the part of a physician or a nurse, but the impact is not that significant. That can be something as simple as having a screw that dislodges after a surgery, but it’s not doing any damage. Those aren’t good cases. What you’re looking for in a medical malpractice case is something where someone’s suffered a life-altering injury that’s not going to go away and can’t be remedied, or that the medical treatment caused death. Rather than looking at medical expenses, look at the significance of the injury and work backwards to whether there is a medical malpractice case involved. A lot of these cases arise just because the circumstances are suspicious. Someone is undergoing a surgery and there really should be no reason they pass away as a result of that surgery. That’s something we want to evaluate and then look at the records to see what indication there is that something may have gone wrong.