Understanding Your Rights to Medical Malpractice Compensation in New York
Medical malpractice can result in many losses, including medical bills that are expensive along with lost wages, and non-economic damages such as pain and suffering. A New York attorney who is qualified can help you understand the rights to compensation you are entitled to.
The first step is to determine if you sustained injuries because of a medical mistake. Then, you can proceed with the legal process of a malpractice suit.
Medical expenses
The expense of medical treatment to treat injuries is the most obvious. This category of damages has an amount that is set by law of the state, that is established in the liability insurance policy of a medical professional. Certain states also have established injured patient compensation funds in order to offset the perceived costs of litigation, and also help providers lower their liability insurance costs.
Victims are entitled to compensation in addition to medical expenses when negligence is found to be a factor. These are known as special or economic damages. They include the cost of medical services (past or future) necessary to treat the injury caused by the malpractice and any income loss resulting from being not able to work.
The damages for suffering and pain are common in medical malpractice cases. This type of compensation is subjective and may differ widely between plaintiffs. This includes emotional distress, physical pain and other non-physical effects of the mistake. A plaintiff, for example, could be compensated if the doctor made a mistake that caused her to fail to attend a vital cancer screening.
In addition, punitive damages can also possible in certain instances. They are intended to penalize doctors for particularly indecent behavior, like leaving a dirty sponge in the body of a patient after surgery.
Suffering and pain
In medical malpractice cases there is pain and suffering as one of the types of non-economic damages. They are a way to compensate for the emotional and physical trauma a victim endured because of the negligent doctor's actions. The symptoms can be minor like discomfort or anxiety or they could be more severe, like loss of enjoyment in life, depression, embarrassment and fear.
It is difficult to assign a dollar value on suffering and suffering, the jury instructions typically leave it to the jurors. They can rely on their judgment, knowledge and experience to determine what they believe is fair and reasonable. Therefore, the amounts that are awarded in malpractice cases differ widely.
Your medical
malpractice lawyer can help you prove the severity of your pain using evidence that is tangible. Photos and X-rays, along with home movies, models and diagrams can assist jurors in understanding the severity of your injuries.
If a doctor's negligence led to the death of a victim survivors can seek compensation through the wrongful death lawsuit or through survival statutes. The law governing wrongful death allows the spouse and children of a victim who died to receive the same amount of money they would have received if the patient had survived. In general, however, the total amount of damages a victim receives is limited by the state's damage limits for pain and suffering. It is essential to have a seasoned medical malpractice lawyer (
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Loss of wages
You may be able to recover lost wages in the event that you miss work because of medical malpractice. This amount includes your base pay as well as commissions, bonuses and benefits from employment, raises in pay, and retirement fund contributions. Your lawyer will go through your pay stubs from the past to determine your average earnings prior to your injury, and then subtract the absence from work to calculate your total lost wages. Your lawyer can help you determine your future loss of income by using a current value calculation. This is an analysis of your finances that analyzes the consequences of your injuries in the future on your ability to earn money. It's usually performed by a professional who is hired by your attorney.
In addition to compensating your economic losses, it is also possible to get non-economic compensation to compensate for pain and suffering that was caused due to the malpractice incident. The jury will decide the appropriate amount of compensation, which can vary from case to case. Certain states set a maximum amount for these damages. However they have been declared inconstitutional by numerous courts.
Settlements of seven figures are typically connected with serious permanent injuries or wrongful death caused by extreme healthcare negligence. For example, surgical mistakes resulting in amputations, mistakes in obstetrics that lead to the brain of a baby and deaths, and anesthesia errors that cause comas could all be the reason for high-value settlements. In certain instances there may be punitive damages used to punish bad conduct.
Future medical treatment costs - Damages
In a medical negligence case, a plaintiff may seek economic or non-economic damages. The former is based on calculable losses, such as the past or future medical costs. The latter are more difficult to quantify and include the suffering and pain as well as loss of enjoyment of life. In a case of medical malpractice the jury will have to hear expert testimony to evaluate these kinds of losses.
Past medical expenses are easy to prove with actual bills from the victim's health healthcare providers. For future costs, the lawyer representing the plaintiff will present medical evidence that proves the type of treatment that is likely to be required in the near future and how much those treatments cost at present. The amount of future medical care needed can also be affected by the age of the victim at the time of the malpractice.
Damages for future lost wages can be proved by showing the impact of an injury on the patient's ability to work and earning capacity in the future. This can be supported by expert testimony from a witness or by looking at similar cases in the previous.
Pain and suffering is a larger type of damage that covers the physical and psychological discomfort and suffering suffers patients from medical malpractice. The type of damages are typically based on the testimony of the victim and other witnesses, as well as evidence such as videos, photographs and written reports.