If you’re injured or ill, your doctor’s failure to treat your condition may lead to an aggravation of your symptoms, potentially making treatments less effective or reducing your chances of recovery. When failure to treat becomes medical negligence, you may have a valid malpractice claim.
Failure to treat can lead to a medical malpractice claim when a doctor fails to take reasonable steps to identify a patient’s injury or illness and determine an appropriate course of treatment. When a doctor’s decisions and actions in a patient’s case fall below the standard of care and the patient suffers harm as a result, the doctor may become liable for medical malpractice.
How Do You Know if a Failure to Treat Qualifies as Medical Malpractice?
A failure to treat may constitute medical malpractice when it results from a physician’s negligence. A healthcare provider commits medical negligence when they render treatment that fails to meet the applicable standard of care in a patient’s case.
Although the specifics of this standard of care differ for every patient, medical and legal professionals generally define the standard of care as the treatment decisions and actions that other providers with similar training and experience would undertake in identical circumstances. Thus, a doctor’s actions may constitute negligence when most other physicians in their field would have made different decisions in treating the patient.
A failure to treat can qualify as medical malpractice when it causes a patient to suffer harm, such as in the following ways:
- Worsening of the patient’s symptoms
- Increased pain
- Need to undergo more intensive or expensive treatment due to the advancement of the patient’s illness
- Reduced chances of making a full recovery
- Permanent impairment, disability, scarring, or disfigurement
- Reduced life expectancy
What Are Examples of a Negligent Failure to Treat a Medical Condition?
Some of the most common examples of negligence that can lead to a failure to treat an injury or illness include the following:
- Failure to diagnose the patient’s condition due to an inadequate examination, lack of diagnostic testing, overlooking symptoms, or eliminating the correct condition from the differential diagnosis
- Delayed diagnosis, or a diagnosis that occurs much later than it should have, had the patient’s provider diligently examined and tested the patient and considered the correct diagnosis
- Misdiagnosis due to misinterpretation of examination or diagnostic test results
- Recommendation of an unnecessary or improper treatment
- Performing a treatment or procedure on the wrong part of the body
- Erroneously explaining risks and treatment alternatives when obtaining the patient’s informed consent for treatment, leading to the patient rejecting a proposed treatment
- Deciding not to recommend or proceed with a treatment course due to cost concerns, such as when insurance refuses to cover a procedure
What Damages Could Be Available When a Doctor Fails to Treat Their Patient?
When a patient suffers injury or harm due to a failure to treat, they may pursue compensation for various economic and personal losses in a medical malpractice claim. A financial recovery in a medical malpractice lawsuit may include the following:
- Costs of additional medical treatment and rehabilitation necessitated by a failure to treat that allowed the patient’s injury or illness to worsen
- Costs of long-term disability care for prolonged or permanent impairments caused by an aggravation of the patient’s condition
- Lost wages/income for the additional time the patient must take off from work to treat a worsened injury or illness
- Lost future earning capacity caused by disabilities resulting from a lack of treatment or delayed treatment
- Additional pain and suffering caused by aggravated symptoms or more intensive treatment necessitated by a more advanced injury or illness
- Reduced quality of life or life expectancy
What if a Patient Dies Due to a Doctor’s Failure to Treat?
A failure to treat an injury or illness that goes on for too long can result in a patient’s death if their condition becomes critical and unresponsive to any form of treatment. When a patient dies due to their doctor’s failure to treat, their family may have the right to pursue a wrongful death claim filed by the personal representative of the deceased patient’s estate. Winning this lawsuit can provide compensation for losses arising from their loved one’s death, including the following:
- Sorrow and mental anguish from the loss of the decedent’s society, companionship, comfort, guidance, and advice
- Loss of the decedent’s income
- Loss of the decedent’s services, protection, assistance, and care
- Additional medical expenses incurred by the decedent due to the failure to treat
- Reasonable funeral expenses
How Soon Must You File a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit in Virginia?
Under Virginia’s statute of limitations for medical negligence claims, you typically have two years after receiving negligent treatment from a healthcare provider to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Although you may have longer to file suit in certain circumstances, you should speak with a medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible after you learn that your doctor failed to treat your injury or illness to give yourself the best chance of filing your medical malpractice claim on time.
Furthermore, after your doctor files a responsive pleading in your medical malpractice lawsuit, you or your doctor can request a review of your claim by a medical malpractice review panel. Parties may present evidence and witnesses to the review panel, which can render an opinion as to whether the doctor failed to comply with the applicable standard of care and whether that failure proximately caused the patient’s harm. The parties may introduce that opinion as evidence in the medical malpractice lawsuit.
Contact a Virginia Medical Malpractice Lawyer
When your doctor fails to treat an injury or illness that gets worse, you may have a medical malpractice claim against your provider. Since 1911, Marks & Harrison has worked diligently to advocate for the rights and interests of injured clients throughout the state of Virginia. We have achieved outsized success in some of Virginia’s most notable cases. With 30 personal injury lawyers and over 100 support staff and investigators, we have the resources and skills to tackle even the most challenging medical malpractice cases. Our dedication has earned us the respect and trust of our clients.
Discover your legal options for seeking financial recovery and accountability for a failure to diagnose and treat that resulted in harm to you. Contact Marks & Harrison today for a free, no-obligation consultation with a medical malpractice attorney. You pay nothing unless we successfully resolve your case.
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