When you seek medical care from a doctor’s clinic, urgent care center, or hospital, you should be able to expect a high quality of care. However, too often, we see patients seriously harmed because medical professionals failed to act when action was urgently and obviously needed. These cases are known as failure to treat, and they are more common than most people realize.
At the Jaklitsch Law Group, our Maryland medical malpractice lawyers have worked to hold the Maryland medical system accountable for its patients since 1999. Our team has secured over $200 million for clients injured by other people’s negligence or intentional inaction. If a doctor’s inaction has left you or someone you love seriously injured, consulting with a failure to treat lawyer in Maryland is the best place to begin.
What Is a Failure to Treat Case?
Failure to treat encompasses negligent actions and inactions a healthcare provider does while failing to provide necessary medical care after diagnosing or suspecting a condition. A failure to diagnose can include a range of provider types, including physicians, specialists, nurses, and other healthcare staff, as well as the facilities themselves. A patient can experience significantly worsened conditions after a healthcare professional acts negligently.
This negligence can take the form of dismissing or downplaying the patient’s symptoms, delaying essential treatment without medical justification, or refusing to refer the patient to a specialist. It can also include failure to follow up on test results or stopping a treatment too early, without a proper cause. These actions can cause life-altering harm to patients entrusted to the healthcare professional’s care.
Left untreated, severe conditions like infections, stroke, heart disease, and cancer can worsen rapidly, leading to worsening symptoms, shortened life expectancy, or even wrongful death. Negligent healthcare workers and doctors should be held accountable for their actions. Failure to treat is a breach of trust and, in many cases, medical malpractice. If you are wondering if you have a solid claim, contact our failure to treat lawyers to discuss your claim.
Hold Doctors Accountable With Strong Legal Representation
Failure to treat cases in Maryland present some of the most challenging legal battles. Hospitals and insurance companies have deep pockets and experienced legal teams, and gathering a solid body of evidence in these cases can be difficult. Do not risk pursuing compensation for your losses by going it alone. Hold those negligent medical professionals accountable for their actions or inactions with strong legal representation, and get the justice you rightfully deserve.
At our law firm, we have over 68 years of combined legal experience, and we use the resources and Maryland network we have built to pull together a strong strategy to back your case. Our Maryland failure to treat attorneys, including former homicide prosecutor Christine Murphy and former corporate defense lawyer Thomas Brimmer, know how to go head-to-head with the toughest out there. We have represented hundreds of cases in trial and will fight as your advocate in the courtroom.
At the Jaklitsch Law Group, we build your case with precision, experience, and dedication, investigating every detail, gathering a strong body of evidence, and pulling in top medical experts to weigh in with testimony. We fight aggressively for maximum compensation for your losses, because anything less is not justice for what you have experienced.
Common Forms of Medical Negligence Leading to Failure to Treat Cases
Failure to treat can take many forms. Patients entrusting their care to medical professionals have rights, including the right to be informed and receive quality care. Some of the most common and dangerous types of negligence we encounter in Maryland medical malpractice cases include:
Lack of Adequate Testing
A vital step to treating a patient is first determining what is wrong, and you cannot treat what you have not properly diagnosed. When doctors skip critical lab work, imaging, or diagnostic testing, they are cutting corners and risking lives. We represent clients who were sent home without blood tests or scans, only to suffer major complications that could have been prevented. If your condition worsened because no one took the time to figure out what was really wrong, you may have a failure to treat case.
Poor Monitoring of Patient
Medical care does not stop after a diagnosis, or even once a treatment has begun. A failure to treat lawyer can help you pursue a case after a nurse or doctor fails in their duty to monitor your vital signs, lab results, and symptoms. Whether in the ER, ICU, or a recovery room, poor monitoring by medical professionals can allow for tragic outcomes. Changes in vital signs and symptoms may be subtle or very obvious, but when a patient is left unattended, neither will be noticed.
Premature Patient Discharge
When hospitals and urgent care centers are in a hurry to clear beds, move patients through the system, and meet their numbers, negligence in premature patient discharge may occur. If you were discharged before you were medically stable and in good condition to return home, you may qualify for a failure to treat case. Patients should not be sent home early only to suffer a stroke, cardiac event, or other emergency a day or hours after discharge. Our attorneys will help you investigate the details of your case and determine if there is appropriate evidence of negligence.
Mistakes in Interpreting Test Results, X-Rays, or Scans
When a doctor misreads lab values, overlooks red flags, or fails to follow up on abnormal results, this can significantly affect a patient’s status. Failure to interpret imaging studies like CT scans, MRIs, and X-rays is also a major contributing factor to failure to treat cases. These avoidable mistakes due to radiologist or physician error can cause patients to suffer from untreated tumors, internal injuries, severe infections, and more. When you pursue a failure to treat claim, you reaffirm that these mistakes are not just harmless oversight and that medical institutions must take their responsibility to patients seriously.
Failure to Refer to a Specialist
In addition to failing to take symptoms seriously, sometimes doctors believe they can treat your conditions on their own without a specialist. The problem occurs when the doctor is not trained in treating complex conditions, or worse, ignores the signs and symptoms that a specialist is needed at all. If you were denied a referral to a neurologist, cardiologist, oncologist, surgeon, or other specialist, our failure to treat attorney can help you pursue the maximum settlement value for your injuries and losses.
Failure to Stabilize a Patient
Federal law requires that hospitals stabilize any patient who arrives in an emergency condition, regardless of their ability to pay or insurance status. Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, hospitals that receive Medicaid funding are legally required to provide a medical screening exam, stabilize the patient’s condition before discharging or transferring them, and transfer the patient appropriately if the hospital cannot provide the necessary care. If a hospital turned you away, delayed treatment, or discharged you in an unstable condition, our failure to treat lawyer may be able to help.
If any of these failure-to-treat situations sounds like something that you or a loved one has been through, we want to hear your story. We take these cases personally, knowing that lives are actually on the line when doctors and other healthcare professionals fail in their duty of care to patients. Let us stand by your side while pursuing rightful compensation and justice against those who have hurt you.
Failure to Treat, Failure to Diagnose, Misdiagnosis: Key Differences
When it comes to medical malpractice claims, both legal and medical terms can get confusing. When you work with a failure to treat lawyer, we will help you understand exactly what is happening in your claim and make sure you understand all of the available options that you have to pursue.
People often use terms like failure to treat, failure to diagnose, and misdiagnosis interchangeably, but these terms refer to distinct types of medical negligence, even though each one can lead to serious harm to the patient.
Failure to Diagnose
Failure to diagnose occurs when a doctor completely misses a medical condition that they should have reasonably seen and identified. They either do not recognize the symptoms, do not order the right tests, or ignore the results.
An example of this is if a young, visibly fit patient reports sudden thirst, excessive urination, and unexplained weight loss, but the doctor sends them home without blood glucose testing. This failure to diagnose Type 1 diabetes could lead to the patient going into severe hyperglycemia, potentially a diabetic coma, and life-threatening symptoms. Doctors who ignore such obvious symptoms need to be held accountable.
Misdiagnosis
In a misdiagnosis case, the doctor identifies a problem, but they get it wrong. They treat the wrong illness, meaning the real condition goes unchecked, and the patient may suffer from unnecessary procedures, wrong medications, and delayed treatment.
One example of this is if a cancer patient is told wrongly that they have an infection, they may not receive timely chemotherapy to impede the growth of their cancer. Or, blood clots that an unthorough doctor often misdiagnoses as a pulled muscle. Misdiagnosis can give patients a false sense of security while their real issues continue to get worse.
When Should You Pursue a Lawsuit for Failure to Treat?
If you are wondering if you have the basis for a medical malpractice claim, you do not need to wait to gather evidence or determine for yourself before you contact a failure to treat lawyer. Contact our office to discuss the details of your case as soon as you can. We will evaluate your situation and determine if your experience was just bad luck or a preventable medical mistake. The sooner you get started, the better, since evidence is always best fresh, and waiting too long could possibly bar you from receiving any compensation.
The statute of limitations under Maryland Law for failure to treat medical malpractice claims depends on when your injury was discovered. Generally, you have five years from the date of the medical injury or mistreatment or three years from the date that your injury was discovered. If you miss this deadline, you may not be able to file a personal injury lawsuit. There are some exceptions to this, but generally, the sooner you file, the better chances you have of receiving fair compensation.
Potential Compensation for a Failure to Treat Case
With medical malpractice claims, you may be able to get compensated for both economic and non-economic damages under Maryland General Assembly Law §5–109. At the Jaklitsch Law Group, we can help you pursue compensation for lost time, lost income, ongoing medical needs, and emotional trauma. Depending on your unique situation, you may be entitled to recover:
- Medical expenses, past and future
- Lost pay and earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Disfigurement
- Loss of companionship
- Wrongful death damages, such as funeral and burial expenses
Our failure to treat attorney will help you calculate past and future expenses to make sure that your one-time settlement encapsulates your full losses. We will even pursue punitive damages if your case is particularly egregious. While this type of financial award is rare, situations involving severely reckless, intentional, or grossly negligent behavior may be awarded punitive damages in attempts to deter similar behavior in the future.
Keep in mind, under Maryland law, there is a non-economic damages cap that applies to all personal injury cases. Most cases are settled outside of court, but if you are not able to come to an agreement with the insurance, you have the right to a trial. Call us to discuss your situation, and we will help you evaluate the options that you have under the law.
Contact Our Failure to Treat Lawyers in Maryland
At the Jaklitsch Law Group, our lawyers have represented thousands of Maryland residents harmed by failure to treat and other medical malpractice throughout our collective years of experience. We have received over $200 million through verdicts, awards, and settlements on behalf of our clients and hold a 99% win percentage rate.
Our goal is to help victims of medical malpractice receive compensation to help in their recovery, as well as pursue justice against negligent healthcare practitioners. Do not delay in getting started. Contact us today to bring your case to The Jaklitsch Law Group and set up a free consultation to discuss your situation.
