It’s never an easy task to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. As most of these cases are complicated and difficult to prosecute, it’s best to know some basics in advance before you move forward with the courts.

The first point you need to definitively prove is that you were injured. This doesn’t mean you had the potential to be injured by a doctors misdiagnosis, but that you received care that was for something other than the affliction you were experiencing. Just because a doctor hypothesizes a certain problematic scenario doesn’t mean the US court system will recognize their bad advice as medical malpractice.

If you did receive improper or unnecessary treatment, the next step is evaluating the severity of your injuries against the cost of a medical malpractice suit. As filing the claim alone generally requires a large down payment for investigations, consultation and preparation of the case, the damages have to far outweigh the cost to make the lawsuit worth your while. Medical malpractice attorneys often cannot take on smaller cases because they cost so much up front, and are not guaranteed any money until and if the case is settled.

The most difficult question to answer may be whether the doctor who treated you used a reasonable level of care. Most good medical malpractice attorneys will have a medical doctor on staff or at least in regular contact to evaluate whether any negligence may have occurred during your treatment. Proving negligence is vital for your medical malpractice case. The most common forms of medical negligence are surgical errors, wrong site surgery (operating on the wrong body part), birth injury, failing to follow-up with patient’s progress, delayed diagnosis and misdiagnosis. A medical doctor must be able to determine the specific negligence, if any, that occurred.

Source: MedicalMalpractice