Failure to Diagnose

Has a doctor failed to diagnose your medical condition? If so, you may have suffered unnecessary pain and medical bills, and there is a possibility that you have endured irreparable harm. At Stephens Kelly Law, we have nearly 20 years of collective legal experience handling all forms of medical malpractice claims, and we want to help you too.

As seasoned litigators who are passionate about helping those who have been injured by negligent healthcare professionals, you can be rest assured that our St. Louis personal injury lawyers will work diligently to take excellent care of you and to pursue the compensation that you deserve.

At Stephens Kelly Law, you benefit from:

• Our experience representing Fortune 500 clients in
  multi-million dollar lawsuits.
• Our
  FREE case evaluations.
• 24/7 availability – available evenings and weekends.

A large percentage of medical malpractice lawsuits stem from failure to diagnose claims, especially in cancer patients. When a physician casually disregards a patient’s complaints, or misdiagnoses the condition, or fails to diagnose the condition altogether, any of the following can occur:

• The patient is put on the wrong medication
• The patient receives incorrect treatment
• The patient receives zero treatment

When a physician fails to diagnose or misdiagnoses a condition, it can be made much worse, and in some cases the patient can die. With that being said, doctors are not held legally responsible for all diagnostic errors. Patients must prove the following elements in order to prevail in their medical malpractice claim:

• A doctor and patient relationship existed
• The doctor was negligent
• The doctor’s negligence was the direct cause of the patient’s injury

Most failure to diagnose cases will hinge on the second and third element – would the medical community consider the doctor negligent and was the negligence directly responsible for the patient’s injuries?

If it can be proven that the doctor’s negligent or delayed diagnoses caused your condition to progress beyond what it normally would have if the correct diagnoses had been made, then you may have grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit.

If your doctor failed to diagnose your medical condition properly, then we urge you to contact our office right away. In Missouri, you have just two years to file a medical malpractice claim; therefore, it is best to file your claim as soon as possible to protect your rights to valuable compensation.