Considering filing a medical malpractice suit...

[musclemom]

Never sued anyone in my life. It would be for my wife, anyway. About a year ago she was having some pains in her ankle. She went to a specialist who took an x-ray, didnt see a fracture, but said "Lets just go ahead and treat it like one." Bought special insoles for her shoes, had to wear a boot for 8 weeks, etc. Nothing really worked...in fact the pain got a bit worse.

Fast forward to today and she finds out she has a huge ass lesion that has eaten away all the cartilage in her ankle and now they have to decide whether they can go in and insert new cartilage, or simply replace the entire fuggin ankle. The lesion could have been spotted easily by a simple MRI scan.

Needless to say were not pleased.

I didn't read all the responses on the thread so this may have already been covered. I used to work for a med-mal attorney. A good med-mal attorney will consult with you, for free, and tell you up front if the case is worth pursuing or not. If the case is worth pursuing, they will work on a contingency basis.

Just playing devil's advocate here, depending on your insurance, don't be too pissed at the doctors. If she didn't really bitch and gripe at the doctor that the pain wasn't improving then they wouldn't know to put her through an MRI I

Additionally, HMOs will refuse payment for imaging studies without sufficent cause. If she had suffered some sort of trauma and wasn't in the doctors office complaining about unremitting pain ... see where I'm going? Malpractice lawsuits shouldn't be so much about missing a diagnosis that could have easily slipped under the radar, but more about really fucking up (i.e., ob/gyn dropping the baby at delivery, surgeon leaving a clamp inside someone, etc.).

Anyway, a good attorney will be honest with you. Best of luck.

 

[75th]

I didn't read all the responses on the thread so this may have already been covered. I used to work for a med-mal attorney. A good med-mal attorney will consult with you, for free, and tell you up front if the case is worth pursuing or not. If the case is worth pursuing, they will work on a contingency basis.

Just playing devil's advocate here, depending on your insurance, don't be too pissed at the doctors. If she didn't really bitch and gripe at the doctor that the pain wasn't improving then they wouldn't know to put her through an MRI I

Additionally, HMOs will refuse payment for imaging studies without sufficent cause. If she had suffered some sort of trauma and wasn't in the doctors office complaining about unremitting pain ... see where I'm going? Malpractice lawsuits shouldn't be so much about missing a diagnosis that could have easily slipped under the radar, but more about really fucking up (i.e., ob/gyn dropping the baby at delivery, surgeon leaving a clamp inside someone, etc.).

Anyway, a good attorney will be honest with you. Best of luck.

I know I have very good insurance, and I know that my wife mentioned the ongoing pain quite a few times. The new doc she goes to now said theres no reason whatsoever the old doc shouldnt have ordered an MRI. Of course, that may just be his opinion, but it still bugs me.

 

[shirlene29]

a pet scan ...really? bone cancer...geez


I'll throw in my useless two cents to help my paltry post count

Insurance manages your health care most of the time...insurance says...well, your symptoms don't warrant an mri, you dont get one...plus better faster clearer imaging misses crap too


it works like an algorythm (sp?) ...pretty much every injury/pain starts with RICE and goes from there..

did you mention the pain went on for a year? if so i think that warrants a referral but Im not sure why she didn't seek one on her own...if I miss remembered that with my feable brain and it was shorter...Im surprised the dr treated it as a fracture and not a soft tissue injury

sue if you want, but malpractice suits have driven out competent healthcare in ct cuz the malpractice ins is now obscenely expensive
when i tore the meniscus in my knee care went
RICE
XRAY
PT(which surprisingly helped a lot)
Referral
MRI
Lapro Surg
PT
NSAID's for the osteoarthritis,narcs if its bad and Im not sleeping

I think this is a pretty standard line of care

 

[miplank]

shush you!

 

[shirlene29]

pfft, thats it, Im post whoring

nao

 

[miplank]

silence woman!

 

[shirlene29]

unbridled post whoring at that

 

[miplank]

are you still talking?

 

[miplank]

no need to answer that.

 

[shirlene29]

yes


lolololololol