Failure to Diagnose Lawyer in Massachusetts

Failure to Diagnose as Medical Malpractice

A failure to diagnose occurs when a physician or other healthcare provider fails to identify a condition that should have been recognized based on the patient’s symptoms, history, and test results, and when that failure causes harm that would not have occurred with timely diagnosis. Not every missed diagnosis is malpractice, some conditions are genuinely difficult to identify, and physicians working within the standard of care may still miss them. Malpractice requires a departure from the standard of care: failing to order tests that should have been ordered, failing to recognize classic symptom presentations, or failing to consider conditions that a reasonable physician would have included in the differential diagnosis.

Conditions Most Commonly Missed

• Cancer: breast, colon, lung, cervical, and melanoma most frequently involved in missed diagnosis claims
• Heart attack: often missed in younger patients and women whose presentations may be atypical
• Stroke: missed when patients present outside the classic profile
• Pulmonary embolism: often attributed to musculoskeletal causes before correct diagnosis
• Appendicitis: particularly in atypical presentations
• Ectopic pregnancy: a life-threatening emergency when missed
• Meningitis: delayed diagnosis allows rapid progression of a treatable condition

How the Standard of Care Applies

The legal standard of care is what a reasonably competent physician in the same specialty would have done under the same circumstances. A family physician who sees a patient with classic symptoms of a heart attack has a duty to recognize those symptoms and act promptly. An emergency physician who sees a patient with the classic signs of stroke has a duty to initiate stroke protocol immediately. When the physician fails to meet this standard, and the patient suffers harm because of the delay in diagnosis and treatment, malpractice exists.

The Role of Expert Medical Testimony

Massachusetts medical malpractice law requires expert testimony from a qualified physician who can establish what the standard of care required, how the defendant departed from it, and what harm resulted from that departure. Attorney Lavey works with qualified specialists, oncologists, cardiologists, neurologists, and emergency medicine physicians as the condition requires, in every failure to diagnose case.

Compensation Available

Failure to diagnose malpractice compensation covers all additional treatment costs required because the condition was not caught at an earlier, more treatable stage; lost wages during the extended illness or treatment caused by the delayed diagnosis; pain and suffering from both the underlying condition and the avoidable progression; and future medical costs for treatment of a condition that could have been addressed less aggressively had it been caught sooner. Attorney Lavey pursues every element of these damages in every failure to diagnose case.

Frequently Asked Questions