Malpractice Claims - An Introduction

One of the leading causes of deaths in the United States is medical malpractice. When victims of malpractice by health care professionals file for medical malpractice claims, malpractice laws ensure that they are provided adequate compensation for the injuries that have been caused to them by health care professionals, subject to proof of the same having been established in the court.

Medical malpractice includes injuries or errors by a physician or by any other health care provider. It may occur when a medical professional performs activities that do not go with the accepted standards of medical practice. The negligent practice may even result in the wrongful death of a patient.

A medical malpractice claim includes two parties, the defendant and the plaintiff. The plaintiff is the party which files the suit. This may include either the victim of the malpractice himself or his/her lawyer who acts on the behalf of the victim. The defendant is the health care provider against whom the victim files the lawsuit. He can be a dentist, a nurse, a physician, or a therapist.

To make the malpractice claim successful, the plaintiff should establish certain elements.

The main focus should be to establish that the doctor had a legal duty to follow a treatment plan or involve in the care of a patient, but the doctor failed to meet the requisite standard of proper health care that was meant to be provided to the patient. Thus, this compromise in the standard of care was the reason which resulted in injury to the victim.

Damages are the heart of a medical claim. If you do not show through strong evidence the injuries and lodge adequate claims, there is no use of filing a lawsuit, even if the health care provider did actually show negligence in his/her duty. There are two types of damages for which the victim can lodge a claim in the court. These include compensatory damages and punitive damages.

In a compensatory damage claim, the victim is refunded the payment made by him for all the medical bills. The patient may also claim monetary benefits as a compensation for the injury and the pain caused him by the health care provider. The health care provider is the one who is liable to pay for all the injuries that are caused to the patient.

The punitive damages claim is rarely filed. This is claimed by victims or their lawyers, if it can be proved without any reasonable doubt that there was some sort of disregard by the health care provider in terms of the safety of the victim. If such charges are proved, the monetary damages can be recovered more as a punishment rather than as compensation for the victim.

It is not so that only doctors are subjected to medical malpractice lawsuits. Even alleged victims of medical malpractice do file false malpractice suits solely to fleece health care providers in the hope of earning easy money. Studies suggest that about 40% of medical malpractice claims are unfounded and are not successful as they fail to establish the basic elements of a medical malpractice lawsuit.