St. Louis Medical Malpractice Attorney

Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice occurs when a patient is harmed by a health professional failing to competently perform their medical duties. However, winning a medical malpractice claim may prove difficult.

Experienced malpractice attorneys in your St. Louis community are available to provide legal services that guide you through the claims process. Contact our personal injury law office so that we can advocate for you while you get the care you deserve.

St. Louis Medical Malpractice Cases

Patients trust doctors because they believe they have their best interest at heart. However, administration errors, surgical mistakes, birth injuries, and medical providers’ negligence can all contribute to medical malpractice injuries.

If you want to prove that medical malpractice occurred, your personal injury law firm will need to be knowledgeable about the various practice areas.  Missouri medical malpractice laws require claimants to demonstrate the following:

Doctor-Patient Relationship

Medical malpractice claimants have to show that there was a physician-patient relationship between the victim and the doctor. Many medical procedures have to be authorized by other medical professionals and can involve medical professionals that didn’t treat you directly. If this contributed to your injuries, speak with a MO medical malpractice lawyer immediately.

A Doctor’s Negligence Caused The Injury

Malpractice claimants are burdened with proving that their doctor’s negligence caused their injury. Since many malpractice patients are sick or injured, proving that the doctor acted negligently and caused harm can be difficult. However, skillful medical malpractice attorneys have had success demonstrating that a doctor’s incompetence directly caused an injury.

Medical Malpractice Injury Damages

If your medical provider acts negligently and deliveries care below the expected standard, you’ll only be able to sue for damages if you can prove that you were harmed due to the medical errors of your medical providers.

Medical negligence cases generally award damages for the following:

  • Physical pain and anguish
  • Mental anguish
  • Compounding medical costs
  • Lost work
  • Lost earning capacity
  • Pain and suffering

Common Medical Malpractice Claims

Medical malpractice claims happen for a variety of reasons. It’s common for claimants to seek competent legal counsel if they’re facing a claim against their healthcare providers. Many medical malpractice claims fall into the following categories:

Diagnosis Failures

According to the Medical Malpractice Instructions outlined by The Missouri Department of Insurers, if other medical professionals would have made an accurate diagnosis, or diagnosed you differently, then you may be entitled to damages.

Improper Medical Treatment

If your medical provider accurately diagnoses your disease but incompetently administers your treatment, which leads to an injury, then you may have the right to a malpractice claim.  When doctors treat patients in a manner that differs from all other competent medical professionals, then you may want to speak with personal injury attorneys about your rights.

Doctor’s Duty To Warn

Medical professionals have a duty of informed consent to warn patients of known risks of a treatment procedure. When patients, once aware of all the possible risks, would have elected not to go through with the procedure, then the doctor may be held liable if the patient is injured by the procedure.

Missouri Medical Malpractice Examples

Medical malpractice can take many forms. The following are some examples of medical negligence:

  • Administration errors
  • Disregarding patient’s medical history
  • Failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis
  • Failure to order proper testing
  • Failure to recognize symptoms
  • Improper medication prescription or dosage
  • Misreading or ignoring laboratory results
  • Surgical errors or wrong-site surgery
  • Poor aftercare practices
  • Premature discharge
  • Unnecessary surgery

Medical malpractice cases typically involve negligent doctors, hospitals, nurses, nursing homes, and other medical providers. Our law office represents clients who have suffered injuries, or even death at the hands of their trusted medical professionals.

Missouri Medical Malpractice Special Requirements

Missouri has special rules and procedures for medical malpractice claims and it is imperative to know about these laws and follow them. In most states, you must bring a medical malpractice claim fairly quickly.

St. Louis MO Statute of Limitations

Missouri Revised Statutes section 516.105 statute of limitations states that the deadline to file a lawsuit is within two years from the date the medical error occurred.

Missouri Medical Malpractice “Affidavit of Qualified Health Care Provider”

Missouri Revised Statutes section 538.225 states that medical malpractice claimants or their medical malpractice attorneys must file an affidavit within 90 days. St. Louis medical malpractice cases have been dismissed due to improper or untimely affidavits.

This affidavit states that they have obtained a written report from a “legally qualified health care provider” which found that:

  • While treating the patient, the health care provider failed to provide the kind of treatment that a reasonably prudent health care provider would have.
  • This failure contributed to the harm alleged in the lawsuit.

Missouri Medical Malpractice Damage Caps

Missouri Revised Statutes section 538.210.1 specifies that in any medical malpractice lawsuit alleging damages caused by the provision of health care services or the failure to provide health services, the plaintiff won’t be able to recover more than $400,000 as compensation for non-economic losses. The $400,000 cap increases to $700,000 in medical malpractice cases involving catastrophic injuries or wrongful death.

What is the average payout for medical negligence?

According to the 2019 Medical Malpractice Payout Report, there were 179 payouts in Missouri, leading to a cost of $52.44 million. All medical malpractice plaintiffs received a total of more than $4 billion in damages with 96.5% of payouts in settlements and 3.5% in trial judgments.

If you want to be awarded damages for a malpractice claim, you must prove the following malpractice elements occurred:

  • A doctor’s negligent decisions resulted in your damages
  • You cannot resolve the malpractice damages with other means
  • Your injuries didn’t exist before the malpractice incident

If you have been harmed due to a medical error, poorly maintained medical equipment, or even a dirty medical facility, you may be wondering about the potential value of your claim. St. Louis medical malpractice attorneys typically categorize damages as:

  • Economic damages based on calculable financial losses
  • Non-economic which don’t have a monetary value based on bills or expenses
  • Punitive damages when the doctor’s actions were malicious or intentional and when the doctor should’ve known that their actions would cause injury

Generally, economic or special damages include lost earnings, medical expenses past and present, future medical bills, loss of earning capacity and employment benefits, and other quantifiable financial losses.

Adept St. Louis medical malpractice attorneys can enlist the help of financial experts to accurately measure the amount of salary you’ll miss due to your injuries. Calculating your work-life expectancy can be difficult but your personal injury attorney can provide legal advice necessary to help you on your path to obtaining compensation.

Determining Your Non-Economic Damages

General damages are not exactly easy to calculate because a judge can’t see how much pain and suffering you’ve experienced because of your injuries. That’s why non-economic damages include both mental and physical anguish, such as:

  • Physical pain
  • Suffering you’re experiencing from your disability or disfigurement
  • Emotional distress and mental anguish
  • Loss of enjoyment
  • Loss of companionship or consortium
  • Sleep disorders
  • Depression
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Researchers with the Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research journal found that “physicians win 80% to 90% of jury trials when there’s weak evidence of medical negligence, approximately 70% of borderline cases, and 50% of cases with strong evidence of medical negligence.”

5% of plaintiffs who won their cases received a payout for diagnostic or treatment errors, 13% received a payout for surgical or procedural errors, and 27% received compensation for medication errors.

That’s why it’s crucial to work with an experienced St. Louis medical malpractice attorney. Working with knowledgeable attorneys that understand medical negligence, can help improve your chances of achieving a successful outcome.

St. Louis Medical Malpractice Lawyers Can Help

The skillful medical malpractice lawyers at Hipskind & McAninch, LLC take our attorney-client relationship seriously. This is why we represent clients suing medical practitioners for professional misconduct.

Our medical malpractice attorneys perform civil litigation tasks and work with medical and financial experts, analyze medical records, and conduct medical research.

It is rare for insurance companies to admit fault. We use our access to legal resources to ensure an expert witness testifies on your behalf and draws on your medical records and associated bills, lost wages information, and Missouri and federal laws to prove how you’ve wrongfully suffered.

St. Louis Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Hipskind & McAninch, LLC has helped clients injured by various medical malpractice errors, including physician negligence, nurse errors, nurse aid mistakes, birth injuries, failure to diagnose cancer, infection, surgical errors, and diagnostic errors.

Discuss all of the effects of your injuries with one of our St. Louis attorneys so they can advocate for your losses with the insurance company. Malpractice cases can be extremely complex and our attorneys help injured victims to investigate all aspects of their cases.

We use paralegals to expedite our record review process and we work with a  network of medical professionals and financial experts to determine the true impact of medical malpractice on your life.

Contact experienced St. Louis, MO medical malpractice lawyers about any injuries you’ve sustained because of a medical procedure, or if you’re a patient turned victim because medical facilities have failed to provide you with adequate care. Our St. Louis medical malpractice attorneys have the knowledge, experience, and resources to substantiate the necessary elements that prove medical malpractice.

We have experience working in other areas of personal injury law and serve clients who are the victims of surgical errors. We also serve those involved in car accidents. We fight tirelessly throughout the entire process so that our clients get a fair settlement and justice for the injuries caused by medical professionals.