Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Medical malpractice is a complex issue and our Philadelphia medical malpractice lawyers are here to help you or a loved one who may have been injured due to medical negligence.

If you or someone you love has been the victim of what you believe is the result of a medical malpractice, contact a medical malpractice lawyer immediately to find out what really happened, get closure and to find out about your rights.

The experienced medical malpractice attorneys at The Rothenberg Law Firm LLP represent clients from all over Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia area specifically, and they will help you understand your legal rights. Let the experienced legal professionals at our firm help you obtain the benefits and the money you deserve.

When it comes to medical malpractice damages in Pennsylvania, you may be eligible to receive several different kinds of damages.  An experienced medical malpractice lawyer will always look at all of the factors of your injury when handling your case.  Depending on the type and severity of your injuries, you may be eligible for substantial compensation.

Generally speaking, damages fall under two different categories: compensatory damages and punitive damages.  What’s the different between the two?

These kinds of damages are exactly what they sound like—they compensate victims for injuries they’ve suffered as a result of a medical professional’s negligence.  The law classifies these damages as those that are aimed at making the victim whole.  In other words, they’re supposed to return the plaintiff to the position he or she would have been in but for the medical malpractice.  Compensatory damages fall into two separate categories: Economic damages and non-economic damages.

For many patients who have suffered an injury after receiving a medical diagnosis, care, or treatment, it’s difficult to know exactly what lawyers mean when they refer to medical malpractice.  In short, it’s a legal term to describe the negligence committed (or omitted) by a medical professional, such as a doctor, dentist, nurse, technician, or a hospital.

These claims can take many forms, including misdiagnoses, the failure to diagnose or treat a condition, delayed or incorrect treatment, and other medication errors.

In Pennsylvania, medical malpractice claims are governed by the Medical Care Available and Reduction of Error Act, which you may have seen referred to as the MCARE Act.  In short, if a medical professional did something wrong or forgot to do something while treating a patient, the patient may be eligible to file a medical malpractice claim.  However, the elements of each medical malpractice claim can depend entirely on the victim and the type of injury sustained, so it’s important to contact a medical malpractice lawyer to discuss the details of your case.

2. If I’m Not Happy with How My Surgery Turned Out, Do I Have a Malpractice Claim?

The short answer to this question is maybe: surgery always comes with certain risks, and surgeries can have unexpected or unpleasant consequences even when the medical professionals involved in the surgery didn’t do anything wrong.  A “bad outcome” does not immediately mean that any malpractice has occurred.  There are known risks to surgical procedures that patients should have been made aware of, and given consent to, prior to undergoing the surgery.  In cases where a patient was not correctly made aware of the risks that they were consenting to, or the surgical procedure performed was not the same as the surgical procedure that was explained to the patient and that the patient consented to, the medical professionals involved may have committed malpractice.

If you suspect that your injury did not turn out to your liking was because of a malpractice that occurred, it’s essential that you contact a medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible.  Only an experienced attorney can advise you about your situation and the likelihood of a successful medical malpractice lawsuit, and remember, our law firm will let you know for free whether or not you have a case.

3. Who Determines the Precise Amount of My Medical Malpractice Damages?

You may have heard that many states have statutory damage caps when it comes to medical malpractice claims.  Indeed, many U.S, states have special laws that limit the amount of compensatory damages for which an injured patient can be eligible.  However, Pennsylvania is a little bit different: in PA, there are no compensatory damage caps.  That means when a patient files a medical malpractice claim, the jury will look at the individual elements of his or her claim (i.e., the type and severity of the injury she suffered), and it will decide how much the defendant will have to pay the victim.  Because there’s no cap on compensatory damages, Pennsylvania victims of medical malpractice can be more adequately compensated if they have a dedicated and experienced medical malpractice attorney on their side.

A jury also decides whether to impose punitive damages, but there are some limits on what the jury can do here.  Under Pennsylvania law, a jury can’t impose punitive damage amounts that exceed 200 percent of the victim’s compensatory damages unless the defendant has exhibited deliberate misconduct or reckless disregard for the patient’s life.  And, the plaintiff isn’t going to receive all of these damages—according to PA law, 25 percent of punitive damages have to be paid into Pennsylvania’s MCARE fund.

4. If I Signed a Consent Form Before My Surgery, Did I Waive My Right to File a Malpractice Claim?

A medical malpractice lawyer will want to make sure that you actually consented to the procedure that caused your injury.  In other words, did the medical professional have valid consent from you before performing a procedure?  Informed consent can be a tricky issue, but it’s intended to make sure that a patient has the capacity to consent to a medical procedure, and that she has all of the relevant information about its associated risks.  If there was no valid consent, then you may have a medical malpractice case.

It’s important to know that even if you validly consented to a medical procedure; your consent does not give the doctor the power to act negligently when conducting your treatment or surgery.  In short, even if you validly consented to a procedure, if the medical professional acted negligently, you still may have a medical malpractice claim.  The experienced medical malpractice lawyers at The Rothenberg Law Firm LLP have been handling these cases for years, and they know the difference between a case where a patient consented to the possible risks of a surgery and when a surgeon acted negligently and caused a patient’s injury without her consent.  A patient can consent to probable risks of a surgery, but she can never consent to a doctor’s negligent behavior.

5. What Are the Elements of a Successful Malpractice Claim?

In order to have a successful medical malpractice claim, the plaintiff must prove elements of her case.  It’s important to know that the burden of proof is on the injured patient, so it’s essential to have a trustworthy medical malpractice lawyer who can present the evidence of the case in a clear and convincing way to the jurors.

6. What are the elements that a plaintiff must prove?