Every day, millions of patients worldwide entrust their health and lives to medical professionals in different capacities. The last thing you'd expect from these experts is negligent behavior that not only harms your well-being but also hinders your ability to care for yourself and your family.
Georgia law requires medical professionals to give patients the appropriate standard of care during diagnosis and treatment. Standard of care refers to a reasonable doctor's actions and decisions consistent with what a similarly qualified medical professional in their capacity would do in similar circumstances.
Failure to exercise the proper standard of care could harm the patient, resulting in medical malpractice. Fortunately, you can file a medical malpractice claim against negligent medical professionals to hold them accountable for any damages they cause. Keep reading to learn all you need to know about medical malpractice in Georgia, including what it is and how to prove negligence in a medical malpractice case.
Medical malpractice is when a doctor or any other medical professional gives you care that doesn't meet the appropriate standard of care. This may include acting recklessly or failing to take the required action, causing harm to the patient. Common examples of medical malpractice in Georgia include:
- Misdiagnosing a medical condition
- Delaying a diagnosis, thus exacerbating a medical condition
- Prescribing the wrong medication and treatment
- Using defective medical equipment
- Failing to follow up with patients' treatments
Any healthcare provider, including pharmacists and psychologists, can commit medical malpractice, provided they have a duty of care. However, not all mistakes made by these professionals count as medical malpractice. What separates them is the medical practitioner's intent, skill, and knowledge.
The law in Georgia protects victims of medical malpractice. To have a solid medical malpractice claim against a healthcare provider, you must prove the following:
You must first prove that you had a doctor-patient relationship with the doctor before anything else. Keep in mind that "doctor-patient relationship" is just a widely accepted term, but this can refer to your professional relationship with any medical expert.
This relationship is established once the medical practitioner takes responsibility for providing you with medical care. The victim (you) must give sufficient evidence of this relationship through medical records, bills, phone call transcripts, and other documents.
In medicine, the standard of care is the acceptable level of care a medical expert should give you in specific circumstances. There's no benchmark for this level of care, but it's usually comparable to what an experienced and qualified medical professional would do in the same circumstances.
It falls on you to prove that the medical practitioner deviated from the acceptable standard of care. The court will determine whether the standard of care was met and proceed accordingly. In cases where it's difficult to establish whether this standard was met, the court will refer to the Considerations for Establishing Standard of Care report for guidance.
Once you establish what standard of care the medical professional was meant to meet, the next step is proving that they didn't. You must pinpoint the exact instance of negligence that breached this standard and led to damages. The best way to do so is by providing medical documentation and witness testimonies. Expert witness testimonies are especially useful since they hold more weight than ordinary testimonies.
Proving negligence is just one part of the action. You also have to prove causation. This means showing that the damages you suffered directly result from the medical expert's actions or inaction. In some cases, proving causation can be hard, but an experienced attorney can help you do that.
The last and most important piece of the puzzle is showing the damages you suffered under the hands of the medical practitioner. Damages include everything from health issues to the financial and psychological impact on your family and your loved ones. Common damages in medical malpractice cases include:
- Medical bills
- Pain and suffering
- Disfigurement
- Lost wages
- Loss of earning potential
- Loss of enjoyment
- Loss of consortium
Yes, the Georgia medical malpractice law has a statute of limitation. Victims of medical malpractice have two years from the date of injury/illness to file a medical malpractice claim. The same victims also have up to five years after the date the negligent action was committed to file a lawsuit.
The only exception to the five-year deadline is when a medical expert knowingly or unknowingly leaves a foreign object inside a patient's body. This could be anything from surgical equipment to a cotton swab. It's worth noting that the law doesn't recognize fixation and prosthetic aid devices as "foreign objects."
The maximum a medical malpractice victim can receive in non-economic damages is $350,000 for a single medical provider and $700,000 for all medical facilities involved. However, if you file multiple claims against medical facilities for different circumstances, the maximum amount is $1,050,00.
Sometimes, medical practitioners and patients are both responsible for injuries or illnesses in a medical malpractice incident. In such cases, the court will apply shared responsibility and reduce the victim's compensation in proportion to their degree of fault. This means that you might not receive compensation if you have over 50% fault in the situation.
A single misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis can put your life in danger. Thankfully, Georgia law provides adequate measures to protect your health and financial situation should you fall victim to medical malpractice. However, remember that you only have two years to file your claim, and settlement is capped at $350,000 per malpractice incident.
While no law prohibits medical malpractice victims from filing medical malpractice claims themselves, you'll be better off leaving it to an experienced personal injury attorney. A personal injury attorney can use their knowledge and experience to help you get the settlement you deserve.
