Harlow County
Medical Malpractice Lawyer.
A malpractice case cannot go far without a certificate of merit signed inside sixty days of the complaint, and that certificate rests on a licensed professional reading the record, which is why every one of these files starts with the record and not with a lawsuit.
How Do I Get My Medical Records?
You can start this today, on your own, and it costs nothing but a stamp. Federal law gives you the right of access and puts a deadline on the answer.
Call (555) 018-4420Write to health information management
Not to the doctor and not to the ward. Every hospital has a records department, usually called health information management. Ask in writing for a complete copy of the designated record set for the admission, naming the dates and your date of birth, and keep a copy of what you sent and when.
Ask for the parts that get left out
Admission and discharge summaries, operative and procedure reports, anaesthesia records, nursing notes, the medication administration record, imaging and the reports written about the imaging, laboratory results, consent forms, and the audit trail of the electronic chart. A summary is not a record.
They have to act on the request
A covered entity must act on a request for access no later than 30 days after receiving it. If nothing arrives, write again and say that. The date you asked is worth as much as the date they answered.
Read it for what is missing
Gaps in a chart, a note written later than the event it describes, a time that cannot be right, a page that refers to a form nobody sent you. Those are the things a licensed professional in the same field is asked to look at, and they are the reason the record comes before the lawyer.
What Is A Certificate Of Merit And Why Does It Matter?
It is the document that makes a malpractice case real, and it is why nobody serious will tell you on the phone that you have a case.
A typical state's rule requires the plaintiff's attorney, or the plaintiff if unrepresented, to file a certificate of merit with the complaint or within sixty days after it. The certificate has to say one of three things: that an appropriate licensed professional has supplied a written statement that there is a reasonable probability that the care fell outside acceptable professional standards and that this caused the harm, or that the claim rests only on allegations against other licensed professionals the defendant is responsible for, or that testimony from an appropriate licensed professional is unnecessary to prosecute the claim.
The court can extend that sixty days by up to sixty more for good cause. What it cannot do is make the certificate unnecessary. So the order of work is fixed: the record first, then a reading of it by somebody qualified to read it, then a view on whether there is a claim, then the complaint. Anyone who reverses that order is guessing with your case.
It is also why a first call about a medical injury sounds different from a first call about a crash. Nobody can tell you the answer that day. What the office can do that day is tell you which records to ask for and start the clock on getting them.
What Counts As Malpractice And What Is A Bad Outcome?
Medicine goes wrong without anybody doing anything wrong. This is what the reading of the record is actually for, described in practical terms rather than legal ones.
A bad outcome on its own
- The treatment did not work, and everybody did what the situation called for
- The risk that materialised was one that was explained beforehand and consented to
- A condition progressed the way that condition progresses
- Hindsight makes an earlier decision look worse than it was at the time
What a reading of the record looks for
- A step that other clinicians in the same position would have taken, and nobody took
- A link between that and the harm, not just a coincidence in time
- A chart that shows it, including what was recorded, when, and by whom
- A licensed professional in the same field willing to put a written statement behind it
What Happens After The Record Comes Back?
Three directions, depending on what the reading finds and on what happened to the patient.
If the patient died
Two claims, not oneA death brings a wrongful death action and a separate survival action, with their own rules about who may bring them and when.
Who you would be dealing with
Three attorneys, sixteen languagesEach profile says what they work on, which office they sit in and which languages they speak, so you can ask for a person by name.
The questions before the questions
Deadlines, adjusters, first callsWhat it costs to ask, how long a claim takes, and what happens on the first phone call.
Do I Have To Sue To Find Out What Happened?
Not firstNo. The record request is not a lawsuit, it does not name anybody, and it does not commit you to anything. Most people who ask this office about a medical injury end up knowing more about their own treatment than they did before, whether or not there is ever a case. Ask before the two years starts to bite.
How Long Do I Have To Bring A Malpractice Claim?
Four dates matter, and the sixty day one belongs to your lawyer rather than to you.
Two years
Two years from the death
Minority is not counted
Sixty days
- Certificate of meritMany states require a medical harm lawsuit to be supported early by a statement that a qualified professional has reviewed the case.
- More time for the certificateCourts can usually allow more time to file that statement where there is good reason.
- Statute of limitationsSets the time to start a lawsuit for an injury or a death caused by someone else's negligence, often two years, usually counted from the injury.
- Medical claim deadlinesMedical harm claims often carry their own deadline rules, including an outside limit that can apply even when the harm is discovered late.
- Tolling for minorsIn many states the clock for a child's own claim does not start until the child becomes an adult, although a parent's claim can run sooner.
- Your right to your medical recordsFederal privacy rules give patients a right to see and get copies of their own medical records, within a set time and for a limited fee.
Questions About Medical Cases.
The office's own list of categories is the familiar one: birth injury, delayed diagnosis, failure to diagnose, failure to monitor, medication errors, surgical errors, emergency room mistakes. These are the questions those calls open with.
No, and nobody honest will. The rule requires a certificate of merit resting on a written statement from an appropriate licensed professional who has read the record. What the office can do on the phone is tell you exactly which records to ask for and how to ask.
A covered entity must act on a request for access no later than 30 days after it receives the request. Write again, in writing, referring to the date of your first request. Keep both letters.
No. Diagnosis is a judgment made with incomplete information, and being wrong is not the same as being careless. What is looked at is whether the examination and the history were done, and whether the signs that were recorded called for a step nobody took.
Both. A death brings a wrongful death action for the spouse, children or parents, and a separate survival action for the estate, and where malpractice is alleged the action generally has to be commenced within two years after the death.
Yes. The firm visits at home and in hospital in Harlow County, the neighboring counties, North Ridley and just over the county line, and the phone at (555) 018-4420 is answered at any hour by a person.