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Understanding Your Rights to Medical Malpractice Compensation in New York

Medical malpractice can cause many losses, including expensive medical expenses, loss of income and non-economic damages like suffering and pain. A knowledgeable New York attorney can help you determine your rights to a fair settlement.

First consider if your injuries resulted from a medical error. The next step is to file a malpractice suit.

Medical expenses

The most obvious cost associated with malpractice is that of medical care needed to treat the resultant injuries. This type of damages comes with limitations set by state law, which is determined in the liability insurance policy of a health provider. Some states also establish injured patients compensation funds to reduce the perceived cost of litigation and to help drive down liability premiums for health care providers.

In addition to medical expenses, victims are entitled to compensation for other costs related to the negligence. These are referred to as special or economic damages. They include the cost of medical treatment (past or future) required to treat an injury caused by the negligence as well as any income lost due to being unable to work.

The damages for suffering and pain are typical in medical malpractice cases. This type of damage is a bit different for each claimant and is subjective. It covers any physical pain, emotional stress and other physical or psychological effects that result from the negligence. For example, a plaintiff could be compensated for a mistake made by a doctor that caused her to miss a crucial cancer screening appointment.

In some instances the punitive damages may be granted. They are designed to punish a physician for particularly egregious behavior, for example, leaving a sponge inside the patient after surgery.

Pain and suffering

In medical malpractice cases it is a matter of pain and suffering. It is a type non-economic damages. They are a way to compensate for the physical and emotional trauma a victim has suffered due to the negligent doctor’s actions. The symptoms could be mild such as pain or anxiety or they can be major such as loss of enjoyment in life depression, embarrassment, and fear.

It’s hard to determine an amount of money on suffering and pain, so jury instructions generally leave it to jurors to rely on their own judgment, background, and experience in determining what they believe is reasonable and fair. In the end, the amount of money paid in malpractice cases vary widely.

Your medical malpractice attorney can help you prove the extent of your suffering through evidence that is tangible. Images, Xrays, models, home movies diagrams, and drawings can help a jury determine the extent of your injuries as well as how they affect your daily life.

If a physician’s mistake resulted in the death of a patient’s family members, the heirs can seek damages through survival statutes or wrongful death lawsuits. The laws governing wrongful death typically allow the spouse and children to recover the same amount of compensation that they would have received if the patient was alive. In general, however, the total amount of damages that a victim is able to collect is limited by a state’s damage caps for pain and suffering. This is why it’s so important to have a knowledgeable medical malpractice attorney on your side to fight for the settlement you deserve.

Lost wages

You can get back your lost wages if you miss work due to medical negligence. This includes your base pay, bonuses, commissions and benefits from employment, raises in pay and retirement fund contributions. Your attorney will review your pay stubs for the previous year to calculate your earnings per hour prior to your injury, and after that, subtract your absence from work to calculate the total loss of earnings. Your attorney can also assist you in determining your future loss of earnings by using a present value calculation. This is a complex financial analysis that looks at the effects of your injuries on your capacity to work in the future. it’s usually done by a specialist hired by your attorney.

In addition to compensating for your economic losses, you could also claim non-economic damages for pain and suffering caused due to the malpractice incident. The jury will decide the appropriate compensation amount that can differ from case to case. Certain states limit these damages. However they have been deemed unconstitutional by several courts.

Seven-figure settlements are typically associated with serious permanent injuries or deaths caused by extreme healthcare negligence. High-value settlements may be awarded for among others, surgical errors that result in amputations or brain damage to infants or mothers and also anesthesia mistakes that cause comas. In certain circumstances, punitive damages may be available to punish bad behavior.

Future medical treatment costs – Damages

In a case of medical negligence, a plaintiff may seek economic or non-economic damages. The former are based upon calculable financial losses, such as future and past medical expenses. The latter is more difficult to quantify, and covers pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment. In a medical negligence case the jury will listen to expert testimony in order to evaluate the losses of these kinds.

It is relatively easy to prove past medical expenses by submitting actual bills that were sent to the person injured by their health care providers. For future expenses, the attorney for the plaintiff will provide medical evidence that demonstrates the type of treatment that is likely to be required in the near future and how much those treatments cost currently. The amount of future 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 through showing the impact of an injury on the patient’s ability to work and earn in the future. This may be supported by expert testimony or by examining similar cases in the past.

Pain and suffering is a broader class of damages that encompasses the physical and emotional discomfort and distress that patients suffer from medical malpractice. This kind of damage is typically based on testimony of witnesses and the victim and evidence such as photographs videos, audiotapes, and written reports.