What is a Misdiagnosis or a Delayed Diagnosis?
We rely on physicians to help heal us when we are ill. Physicians have a duty to diagnose and treat conditions in a timely manner. By catching the disease before it has time to progress, physicians prevent patients from enduring further medical costs and lost wages.
Unfortunately, physicians do not always diagnose conditions when they should. A delayed diagnosis may be of no help when a cancer has metastasized to the point that it is inoperable. If a physician has failed to diagnose your condition or has been delayed in making a diagnosis, you may be eligible to recover compensation. If you are interested in discussing your legal options, do not hesitate to speak to one of our Greenville, SC, medical malpractice lawyers.
What Qualifies as a Failure to Diagnose?
A failure to diagnose occurs when a physician fails to identify a patient’s condition. This can result in the patient enduring the wrong treatment or having few options once the diagnosis is made. Both delayed and incorrect diagnoses qualify as a failure to diagnose.
Any of the following circumstances constitutes a failure to diagnose:
- Failing to recognize the relationship of symptoms to a serious condition
- Failing to take an accurate patient or family history
- Failing to recognize a patient’s health risks
- Failing to order the correct diagnostic tests (this may include laboratory tests or medical imaging)
- Misinterpreting or misreading test results
What is Considered a Delayed Diagnosis?
A delayed diagnosis occurs when a physician fails to make a diagnosis in a reasonable timeframe. This may be due to clinical or administrative errors. In determining if a delayed diagnosis took place, you must consider whether another provider would have taken a different diagnostic approach.
For example, if a patient comes to the ER with upper abdominal pain, the ER physician may use ultrasound imaging to diagnose gallstones. While the patient may have gallstones, upper abdominal pain is sometimes a symptom of a heart attack. The physician may send the patient up for gallbladder surgery, not considering that there is an underlying heart issue. The diagnoses may not be made until the patient’s vitals are taken prior to surgery. At this point, the heart attack has progressed, causing irreversible damage to the heart muscles.
Reviewing the above scenario, it can be argued that a more experienced physician may have been able to diagnose a heart attack sooner. Delayed diagnoses can be just as damaging as misdiagnoses, resulting in significant harm to a person’s health. If you have been injured due to a practitioner’s failure to accurately diagnose an underlying condition, you only have three years to take legal action under SC Code §15-3-530.
Contact Our Greenville, SC, Medical Malpractice Attorneys Today
If you or a family member has been impacted by a provider’s failure to diagnose your condition in a reasonable timeframe or at all, our legal team would like to speak with you. Medical malpractice can lead to the patient incurring thousands of dollars of medical bills, all due to a physician’s failure to act appropriately. At Parham Smith & Archenhold, LLC, we are dedicated to helping victims of malpractice recoup maximum damages. To schedule your free consultation with one of our Greenville medical malpractice lawyers, our office can be reached online or by calling (864) 432-1796.