Charlotte Injury Lawyers Blog
Charlotte Injury Lawyer Matt Arnold answers the question: “What is Maximum Medical Improvement and how does it effect my claim?”
When we seek the advice of a medical professional, we are trusting them with one of the most important things to us — our health and well-being. Putting your life literally into someone else’s hands takes a lot of trust. That is why it is difficult when healthcare providers do not do their duty and injuries or illnesses are made worse. Mistakes happen, but when mistakes are made with medical care, there can be life-altering consequences. When healthcare providers are negligent in their care, a legal remedy to those affected is a medical malpractice lawsuit. You have probably heard this term before, medical malpractice, but it can be difficult to determine what exactly constitutes medical malpractice. Additional resources related to personal injury can be found here.
North Carolina law dictates when actions can or cannot be considered medical malpractice. Generally, there are a few requirements that must be met for a healthcare provider’s actions to rise to the level of medical malpractice.
- Standard of Care Violated: Every circumstance can require a different standard of care that the healthcare provider should be providing. Standard of care means what is deemed to be an acceptable medical treatment. The way that meeting the standard of care is judged is based on if it is what other reasonable medical professionals in the same field would do. If the action, or actions, performed are outside of this generally recognized standard of care, there may be a case for establishing negligence.
- Negligence Caused the Injury: It is not enough to establish that the healthcare provider operated outside of the reasonable standard of care for the field. It must also be established that this negligence caused an injury. This injury must be something that the patient would not have experienced if not for the negligence of the healthcare provider.
- Injury Caused Damages: In addition to the negligence being the cause of an injury, there also needs to be evidence of damages that resulted from the injury. Medical malpractice suits can be costly with medical experts, attorneys fees, etc., so there needs to be sufficient damages to justify a lawsuit. Damages include anything from the medical bills that you have accumulated from the injury to lost wages from being unable to work. Without damages, the medical malpractice suit is unlikely to succeed.
There are many situations that may be considered medical malpractice. These situations include:
- Misdiagnosing an injury or illness
- Dialing to diagnose an injury or illness
- Surgery that is unnecessary
- Errors made during surgery
- Prescribing the wrong medication or dosage
- Failing to read a patient’s medical history and making errors as a result
If you or a loved one have experienced injuries due to a healthcare provider’s negligence, the personal injury attorneys at Arnold & Smith, PLLC are here to help. It is an awful breach of trust when your healthcare provider makes a mistake that could be potentially life-altering. Let us help you recover the damages you have suffered as a result of their negligence. Contact us today for a consultation, now taking cases throughout the Charlotte region with offices in Uptown Charlotte, Mooresville and our new location in Monroe, call us at 704-370-2828.
The skilled personal injury attorneys at Arnold & Smith, PLLC are dedicated to maximizing the financial recovery and obtaining justice for every personal injury client injured by another party’s negligence. The issues our personal injury clients may be facing include, but are not limited to, slip and fall injuries, wrongful death, product liability, catastrophic injuries, dog bite claims, car and truck accident injuries, motorcycle injuries, traumatic brain injury (TBI), nursing home negligence, spinal cord injury, boating accidents, and defective medical device injury. Our personal injury attorneys understand the devastating impact such an injury can have on a person’s life, and that the effects so often go beyond physical pain and suffering. The personal injury attorneys at Arnold & Smith, PLLC are dedicated to helping clients determine the strength of their claims, and to aggressively pursuing the means necessary to achieve the best possible end result for each client’s particular situation.
Source:
https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/ByArticle/Chapter_90/Article_1B.pdf
https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/ByChapter/Chapter_1D.pdf
Image Credit:
https://www.freeimages.com/photo/surgeon-3-1504757
See Our Related Video from our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ArnoldSmithPLLC/videos
See Our Related Blog Posts: