When people have serious medical symptoms, they need a physician to diagnose them. Doctors can pinpoint fractures with imaging tests. They can conduct biopsies to diagnose cancer.
The sooner people with serious medical issues receive an accurate diagnosis, the better their chances of receiving sufficient treatment and having the optimal long-term prognosis. Unfortunately, diagnostic errors can leave people without answers and without treatment despite presenting very serious medical symptoms.
Patients may sometimes need to file malpractice lawsuits, especially if they experience one of the known risks of diagnostic errors below.
1. Undergoing the wrong treatment
Misdiagnosis or a doctor reaching the wrong diagnostic conclusion is a common and devastating diagnostic error. If a physician rushes to conclusions and a patient undergoes treatment for a condition they don’t have, they can experience a broad range of medical consequences.
2. Worsening symptoms
A doctor’s failure to diagnose a patient may leave them without any sort of care to manage their symptoms or treat their underlying cause. In some cases, such as when patients have cancer, their condition may progress rapidly. They may have substantially worse symptoms and a poorer prognosis due to the failure to diagnose their condition when they initially saw a physician. In the worst cases, conditions may even prove fatal due to diagnostic errors.
3. Fewer treatment options
As medical issues worsen over time, the patient may have fewer treatment options. They may also need to undergo far more aggressive treatments that have worse side effects or lower success rates than the treatments available during the earlier stages of their medical condition.
If another doctor could have diagnosed an affected patient by asking the right questions or administering appropriate tests, a diagnostic error that occurred could constitute medical malpractice. Filing a successful medical malpractice lawsuit can help people recover increased medical costs and lost wages caused by the mistakes of a physician.