Understanding Your Rights to Medical Malpractice Compensation in New York

Medical malpractice can lead to a number of losses including medical bills that are expensive, lawsuit lost wages and non-economic damages such as pain and suffering. A licensed New York attorney can help you determine your rights to a fair settlement.

First decide if your injuries resulted from an error in medical care. The next step is to file a malpractice suit.

Medical expenses

The most obvious cost related to malpractice is that of medical treatment needed to treat the injuries that result. It's important to realize that this type of damage 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 patient compensation funds to offset the perceived cost of litigation, and also to help drive down liability premiums for providers.

In addition to medical expenses Victims are also entitled to compensation for other costs that are a result of negligence. These are known as economic or special damages. These include the cost of medical services (past or future) required to treat the injury caused by the negligence and also any income loss due to being in a position of being unable to work.

In medical malpractice cases, pain and damages are also typical. The amount of damages for pain and suffering can vary widely between claimants and is a subjective one. This includes physical pain, emotional distress and other non-physical effects of the negligence. A plaintiff, for instance may be able to claim compensation if an error by a doctor which caused her to not take part in a crucial cancer screening.

In addition, punitive damages are also possible in certain instances. These are intended to punish doctors for particularly unprofessional behavior, for example, leaving a sponge in the body of a patient after surgery.

Suffering and pain

In medical malpractice cases it is a matter of pain and suffering. It is a type non-economic damages. The compensation is for the mental and physical trauma victims suffered due to the doctor's negligence. The symptoms could be minor such as anxiety or discomfort or even more severe issues, like loss of pleasure in life, depression, embarrassment, anxiety, and sleep disorders.

As it's hard to put a value on the amount of suffering and suffering, the jury instructions generally leave it up to the jurors. They can use their judgment, knowledge and experience to decide what they consider fair and reasonable. This is why the amount of compensation given in malpractice cases can vary greatly.

Your medical malpractice attorney can help you prove your suffering with tangible evidence. X-rays, photos, models, home movies, diagrams, and drawings could help a jury understand the extent of your injuries as well as how they affected your daily routine.

If negligence by a doctor led to the death of a victim, the survivors can seek compensation through wrongful death lawsuits or survival statutes. Laws governing wrongful deaths typically allow a deceased victim's spouse and children to receive the same compensation that they would have received had the patient survived. The amount that a victim may receive is typically limited by the state's limits on pain and suffering. This is why it's important to find a skilled medical malpractice attorney on your side to ensure you receive the justice you deserve.

Lost wages

You are able to recover your lost wages if you are unable to work because of medical malpractice. This includes your base salary as well as bonuses, commissions, and benefits from employment. Also, it includes any pay raises or pay increases. Your attorney will look over your pay stubs for the previous year to determine your average earnings prior to the injury, and then subtract your missing work to determine your total lost earnings. Your attorney can help determine your future loss of income using a current value calculation. This is an analysis of your finances that analyzes the impact of your injuries in the future on your ability to earn an income. This is usually done by a professional who is hired by your attorney.

In addition, to compensating your economic losses, you can recover non-economic damages for pain and suffering caused by the incident. The jury will decide the appropriate amount of compensation which varies from case to case. Certain states, however, have limits on the amount of damages they can claim, and they've been declared unconstitutional in a number of cases.

Seven-figure settlements usually involve serious permanent injuries or wrongful deaths caused by extreme healthcare negligence. For instance, surgical errors which result in amputations or complications during obstetrics that cause the brain of an infant and deaths, and anesthesia errors causing comas might all command high-value settlements. In certain situations punitive damages could be offered to punish bad behavior.

Future medical treatment costs - Damages

In a medical malpractice lawsuit there are two kinds of damages a plaintiff can seek: economic and non-economic damages. The first are based on measurable financial losses, including future and past medical expenses. The latter is more difficult to quantify, and includes suffering and pain as well as loss of enjoyment. In a medical negligence lawsuit the jury is required to hear expert testimony to assess these kinds of losses.

Past medical expenses are easy to prove by submitting actual bills from the victim's health medical providers. For future expenses, the attorney for the plaintiff will submit medical evidence that proves the kind of treatment likely to be required in the near future and how much the treatments cost currently. The amount of medical treatment required can be influenced by the victim's age at the time of the malpractice.

Damages for future lost wages can be proven by demonstrating the impact of the injury on the patient's ability to work and earning capacity in the future. This can be substantiated by expert testimony from a witness or by looking at similar cases in the past.

Pain and suffering is a broad category of damages that encompasses the physical and emotional discomfort and pain that suffers a patient due to medical negligence. This type of damages is typically based on the testimony of the victim and other witnesses as well as evidence like photographs, videotapes and written reports.