Understanding Your Rights to Medical Malpractice Compensation in New York

Medical malpractice can lead to many losses, including expensive medical treatment, lost income and damages not based on economics, such as pain and suffering. A qualified New York attorney can help you learn about your rights to a fair settlement.

The first step is to determine if you have suffered injuries due to a medical mistake. Then you can file an action for malpractice.

Medical expenses

The expense of medical treatment to treat injuries is the most obvious. It's important to recognize that this category of damages is capped by state law to a certain amount as stipulated in a health care provider's liability insurance policy. Some states also create injured patients compensation funds to reduce the cost of litigation and help drive down liability premiums for providers.

In addition to medical expenses, victims are entitled to compensation for any other expenses related to the negligence. These are known as special or economic damages. They cover the costs of any medical treatment (past and in the future) required to address the injury resulting from the malpractice, as the loss of income because of being unable to work because of the injury.

In medical malpractice cases, pain and suffering damages are also typical. This category of damages is subjective and may vary significantly between different plaintiffs. It includes any physical pain, emotional stress, and other non-physical effects associated with the mistake. For example an individual plaintiff could be paid for a mistake by a doctor that caused her to miss an important cancer screening appointment.

In certain cases punitive damages can be given. They are intended to penalize a doctor for particularly egregious behavior, such as leaving a dirty sponge inside the patient's body after surgery.

Pain and suffering

In medical malpractice cases there is pain and suffering as a form of non-economic damages. They are a way to compensate for the physical and emotional trauma that a victim suffered as a result of a doctor's negligence. The symptoms may be minor such as pain or anxiety or they could be more severe such as a loss of joy in life as well as depression, embarrassment or fear.

It's difficult to put a dollar amount on suffering and pain, so jury instructions usually leave the decision to jurors to make use of their own judgment as well as their background and experience in determining what they believe is reasonable and fair. The amount of compensation awarded in malpractice suits vary widely.

Your medical malpractice lawyer can help you demonstrate the extent of your pain using demonstrative evidence. X-rays, photos, home movies, models, diagrams, and sketches can help a jury understand the extent of your injuries and how they affected your daily life.

If a doctor's negligence led to the death of a victim, the survivors can seek compensation through wrongful death lawsuits or survival statutes. Wrongful death law allows the spouse and children of a victim killed to receive the same compensation they would have received had the patient survived. Generally, however, the amount that a victim is able to collect is limited by a state's damage caps for suffering and pain. This is why it's important to find a skilled medical malpractice lawyer on your side to fight for the compensation you deserve.

Lost wages

You can recover your lost wages if you are unable to work due to medical malpractice lawyers. This amount includes your base pay bonus, commissions, employment benefits, pay increases, and retirement fund contributions. Your lawyer will go through your past pay stubs to determine your average earnings prior to the injury, and then subtract the lost work to calculate your total lost wages. Your lawyer can also help you determine the future loss of earnings using a present value calculation. This is an analysis of finances that looks at the effects of your injuries in the future on your ability to earn money. It's typically performed by a specialist hired through your attorney.

In addition to compensating your economic losses, you may also recover non-economic damages for the pain and suffering caused by the malpractice incident. The jury will determine the amount of compensation that is appropriate that can differ from case to case. Some states cap these damages. However they have been ruled unconstitutional by many courts.

Settlements of seven figures are typically connected with serious permanent injuries or death caused by severe healthcare neglect. High-value settlements may be granted for among other things, surgical errors which cause amputations, or brain injuries to infants and mothers and also anesthesia mistakes that lead to comas. Punitive damages, which are specifically designed to punish bad conduct, may also be available in certain circumstances.

Future medical treatment and damages

In a medical malpractice lawsuit there are two kinds of damages a plaintiff could pursue: non-economic and economic damages. The former is based on calculable losses such as future or past medical expenses. The latter are more difficult to quantify and include the pain and suffering as well as the loss of enjoyment of life. In a case of medical malpractice the jury will have to hear expert testimony in order to judge these types of losses.

Past medical expenses are easy to prove by providing actual invoices from the injured person's health medical providers. For future expenses, the plaintiff's lawyer will provide medical evidence that shows the kind of treatment likely to be required in the future and how much the treatments cost today. The amount of future medical care needed can also be affected by the victim's age at the time of the incident.

The damages for lost wages in the future can be proven by demonstrating the impact of the injury on the patient's capacity to work and earning capacity in the future. This may be supported by expert testimony or examining similar cases in the past.

Pain and suffering is a umbrella word that describes the physical and mental discomfort and suffering that patients experience due to medical negligence. This kind of claim is typically based on the testimony of the victim and other witnesses and evidence like videotapes, photographs and written reports.