MACON MEDICAL MALPRACTICE LAWYER

Under Georgia law, medical professionals are required to treat patients with “a reasonable degree of care and skill.” This standard applies to a wide range of medical professionals and institutions. Doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, dentists, chiropractors, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and others must meet this level of care. The standard applies to any care or treatment these medical professionals provide, including diagnoses, prescriptions and surgical services.

If an injury or death results from one or more of these medical professionals’ failing to live up to this standard of care, then it is a case of medical malpractice. With the help of an experienced medical malpractice attorney, compensation can be pursued in wrongful death cases.

In your medical malpractice case, our lawyers work on your behalf in multiple ways. Count on us to be thorough in our work to ensure you get the compensation you deserve. We will…

• Investigate the circumstances and potential causes of your injury or illness to see if your injuries are likely to have been caused by malpractice and violations of the standard of care
• Gather information by interviewing witnesses and examining medical records and reports
• Determine which parties were responsible for your injuries and what insurance and assets they may have
• Determine how much your case may be worth by calculating all damages you’ve experienced
• Hire experts to testify as to what happened and how your injuries will affect your life
• Handle dealings and negotiations for a fair settlement with insurance companies and their attorneys, who will try to get you to accept the lowest amount possible
• Build a case and take it to court and present it at trial if necessary.

Be aware that insurance companies are out for profit and not to benefit you. They have high-powered lawyers on their side and will use trained claims examiners who know to ask questions in a way that could harm your case.

Let our Macon medical malpractice attorneys take the burden off you by handling all interactions with insurers, as well as legal hurdles, court filings and procedures, so you can focus on your health and recovery. Give us a call today at (478) 742-3381.

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Under Georgia law, the things you’re entitled to recover when you’re injured due to the negligence of another are broken down into two categories. The first one is called special damages. This is lost income and medical expenses. It’s easy to determine the value of those things.

Special damages are for your economic or monetary damages that have a specific dollar value, such as:

• Medical and rehabilitation bills
• Lost income from work.

The harder one to determine is for your general or non-economic damages. These are losses that do not have a specific dollar value, but negatively affect your life. This award serves to go beyond covered expenses to directly benefit you and your family and may include things like the amount of pain and suffering you’ve had over a given period, or the amount of pain and suffering you may have in the future, and things such as the loss of ability to live your life the way you want to.

For example, if you played a lot of tennis and now you can never play tennis again because of this injury, that’s a life pleasure that you don’t get to experience anymore. You’re entitled to compensation for those losses.

General damages are those that do not have a specific dollar value, such as:

• Physical, mental, and emotional pain and suffering, anguish, anxiety, and stress
• Loss of companionship and consortium
• Physical impairment, disfigurement, and scarring
• Loss of quality and enjoyment of life.

According to Georgia Code section 9-10-184, the monetary value of noneconomic damages can be argued by your attorney. In working through these types of claims, we have to look at all the different variables in addition to the liability aspect. There are not a lot of clear liability medical malpractice claims. Doctors always tend to claim that what they did was the right thing. They’re always able to go out and find experts that will say most anything they want them to say for a price. You have to evaluate the strength of your claim in addition to how much insurance coverage they have, which for doctors is usually fairly substantial.

Punitive damages

In some rare cases, punitive damages are also allowed in medical malpractice cases. It must be proven by clear and convincing evidence that a defendant’s actions showed willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, or conscious indifference to consequences.

There are a wide range of damage awards you may receive in a successful medical malpractice case, ranging from the thousands to millions of dollars, depending on the individual factors in the case. Factors that play a role include:

• The extent, severity, and permanence of your injuries
• Whether you will need continuing care
• Whether you will be able to work again and in what capacity
• Your age, family situation, and earning ability
• Whether a death was involved
• The availability of evidence
• The ability of your attorney to present, negotiate and argue your case
• The inclination of the individual judge and jury.

There are no caps or limits on non-economic damages in Georgia. Punitive damages are limited to $250,000 in medical malpractice cases, except in extremely rare cases where the plaintiff can show an intent to harm.

The heart of a medical malpractice claim is whether the medical professional’s failure to exercise a reasonable degree of care and skill directly caused your injury or the death of a loved one.  In order to show that a healthcare provider was negligent, our attorneys would have to show what the standard of care was in the case (the watchfulness, attention, caution and prudence that the type of healthcare provider at issue would exercise in similar circumstances). The standard of care for a family doctor would be different than one for a heart surgeon.

There are four elements to prove negligence in a medical malpractice case. The following apply to the medical professional who treated you:

• Duty: Had a duty of care not to cause you harm
• Breach: Breached that duty by acting negligently and deviating from the standard of care
• Cause: This failure of duty caused your injuries
• Damages: You suffered damages such as loss of income, additional medical expenses, or pain and suffering as a result.

When there is proof that negligence happened, you will have a strong medical malpractice case.

Although medical negligence can occur in a wide variety of settings, it is particularly common in hospital emergency rooms. Doctors or nurses may rush through examinations and fail to order proper tests or make the correct diagnosis. All too often, patients are harmed because there is a lack of communication among ER staff during handoff of the patient or changes in shifts. At Mann Law Firm, we can examine a wide range of situations where this negligence may have occurred.

• Birth injuries – Errors made before, during or after delivery of a child can harm the mother and have a lasting impact on the child, including brachial plexus injuries and brain damage that leads to cerebral palsy.
• Misdiagnosis – When a physician fails to diagnose a serious condition such as cancer or a heart attack or stroke, it can lead to permanent damage or death.
• Surgical errors – A shockingly high number of injuries are caused by operations being performed on the wrong site, unsanitary instruments being used or foreign objects being left in a patient’s body.
• Anesthesia errors – Mistakes can include administering the wrong type or dose of anesthesia or, in some cases, failing to provide the proper flow of oxygen to the patient.
• Medication errors – The wrong type or dose of a medication can either be prescribed or administered.

Our medical malpractice lawyer’s experience and knowledge makes us a strong advocate to ensure your rights are protected and to pursue the best outcome possible in your case. According to Georgia code section 9-11-9.1, along with the complaint document that starts the lawsuit our attorneys must file an affidavit– a sworn, written statement – by a medical professional who has reviewed your case and found the occurrence of least one negligent act or omission. An expert’s review can take significant time to complete. This makes it crucial to take action immediately if you believe that you or a loved one is the victim of medical malpractice.

In addition, Georgia has a statute of limitations, a deadline for filing your case. According to Georgia code 9-3-71,  a medical malpractice lawsuit must generally be filed within two years of the date  of the injury or death arising from a negligent or wrongful act, or the courts can refuse to  hear your case. In a case where the healthcare provider’s error wasn’t discovered right away (and couldn’t have been), this deadline is extended to five years.

Medical malpractice cases are cases where evidence and witnesses can tend to disappear quickly. These laws make it crucial to take action immediately if you believe that you or a loved one is the victim of medical malpractice.