NYC Failure to Diagnose Lawyers

Experienced Trial Lawyers Fight Medical Malpractice Cases

When you see a doctor, you expect a minimum level of competence, which includes the ability to deduce from your symptoms whether you are at risk of serious illness. When doctors fail to detect or investigate problems, they endanger their patients by denying them timely, potentially life-saving treatment. At Rubenstein & Rynecki, our attorneys have vast experience with various types of medical malpractice. If you or a loved one suffered unnecessarily from the progress of a disease, because your health professional failed to spot it and alert you, we can help you recover compensation. We have won numerous medical malpractice cases, including:

• $1.5 million for wrongful death, when a doctor failed to recognize and treat a mother’s respiratory distress during labor
• $1.5 million when a Brooklyn longshoreman suffered a severe stroke, because his doctor failed to diagnose his vascular disease

We are prepared to fight to win you the highest level of compensation possible.

How to Know if You Have a Case for Failure to Diagnose

Building a medical malpractice case is rarely easy. Patients cannot sue a doctor for a bad outcome, if the doctor did nothing wrong. Patients cannot sue a doctor for making a mistake, if that mistake didn’t cause them harm. But, delayed diagnosis can be the basis for a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit, if:

• Your symptoms would have been obvious to a competent doctor, but your doctor missed them.
• A competent doctor would have ordered additional tests, but your doctor didn’t.
• A competent doctor would have ordered different tests than the ones your doctor ordered.
• A competent doctor would have read something in the test results that your doctor didn’t catch.
• A competent doctor would have put you on a treatment plan right away, but yours delayed.
• A competent doctor would have put you on a different treatment plan.
• A competent doctor would have referred you to a specialist.
• A competent doctor would have prescribed medication, but yours either didn’t or gave you the wrong prescription.

After determining that your doctor made a mistake, you must show a connection between the mistake and the harm you suffered. For example, if your doctor failed to diagnose your cancer when it was at Stage I, and then finally caught it at Stage IV, that doctor might be liable for the additional suffering you experienced. Perhaps at Stage I, you could have had relatively simple surgery and/or localized radiation. However, at Stage IV, the tumor may require extensive surgery and/or chemotherapy and full body radiation.

Damages Available in a Malpractice Lawsuit for Failure to Diagnose

Damages are cash payments made to you because of the harm your doctor caused. That harm is the difference to you economically, physically and emotionally, because of the doctor’s error. These include:

• Medical costs
• Lost wages
• Physical pain
• Emotional suffering
• Loss of quality of life

Rarely does a court award punitive damages, but these are allowed if your healthcare provider acted recklessly, with malice, or to defraud you or your insurance company.

Contact Our New York Delayed Diagnosis Lawyers

If you or a loved one suffered serious injury or wrongful death because of a doctor’s failure to identify and treat your illness, Rubenstein & Rynecki can help. We’ve secured numerous multi-million dollar recoveries in high-profile medical malpractice cases. To learn how our skilled lawyers can handle your case, take advantage of a free consultation.

Call us at (718) 522-1020 or contact our office online to schedule an appointment.