A delayed diagnosis can seriously affect your chances of survival and having a good quality of life. If your medical provider failed to diagnose your condition promptly, you might want to take legal action against them by filing a medical malpractice lawsuit. When medical providers acted negligently when handling a patient may be liable for damages.
But delayed cancer diagnosis lawsuits are often complex. That is why you need skilled Albany Delayed Cancer Diagnosis lawyers to help you build a case and improve your odds of winning it.
Reasons a Diagnosis May be Delayed
Diagnosing some cancers can be difficult, but every doctor is responsible for following medical standards of care as they assess the condition of their patients. Failing to do so or missing the signs of cancer can lead to medical malpractice lawsuits. Delayed diagnosis can happen due to the following:
- Incompetence. Incompetent doctors may fail to diagnose cancer or make a correct diagnosis. Such a mistake can occur due to a lack of proper training or experience.
- Understaffed hospitals. Doctors who work in understaffed hospitals may be overworked. In this work environment, staff can easily miss signs of cancer or forget to run certain tests. But this should not be a reasonable excuse for staff not to follow the standards of care set in the medical field.
- Mishandled tests. Laboratories can make mistakes. They can offer wrong test results because they used expired reagents to screen, mislabeled samples, mixed up samples, and failed to take quality control measures. Inaccurate test results result in wrong or delayed diagnoses.
- Dismissed concerns. Some physicians may dismiss the concerns and symptoms of patients during a checkup. However, doing this can result in them not being able to diagnose cancer or diagnose it properly.
- Lack of time. Some medical providers do not take the time to study the medical history of their patients, run tests, and analyze the data available. Such a mistake can result in missing significant details and not making a timely diagnosis.
Proving Negligence
Every doctor should prevent harm to patients. They should examine every patient and run appropriate tests, so they can make a correct and accurate diagnosis promptly. Otherwise, they should be sued for negligence. To increase your chances of securing compensation for medical malpractice, you must establish that the doctor owed you a duty of care, that they breached this duty and that this breach resulted in a delayed cancer diagnosis. Also, you must show that you sustained damages because of such delay.