What to Do when Medical Malpractice Happens to You

The Basics of Medical Malpractice

Every day I receive calls from people who have been injured by their doctor or a hospital. One of the first questions I ask is, “Do you know how medical malpractice works in Florida?" Unsurprisingly, most people answer “no.”

Medical malpractice isn’t something that most people see in their everyday lives. Because of the complexity of these cases, it makes it difficult to evaluate them on an initial phone call. We can go over the basics such as what happened, when did it happen, and who did it, but we can't give a proper answer without more information.

In order to properly evaluate a medical malpractice case, it’s important to gather the relevant information. This includes:

1. Medical records: Any medical records related to the injury. This may include doctor records, surgical records, and hospital records. All of these are separate – generally a private practice doctor will not have the surgical records even if he performed the surgery. Most hospitals and many private practices have medical records available through an online portal.
   
   
2. Pre-Injury records: One year of medical records pre-dating the injury. These include any referrals to the doctor that was negligent. If your primary care doctor sent you to a specialist who was negligent get your records from your primary care doctor.
   
   
3. Post-accident records: Any medical records after the injury. As an attorney, I need to know what medical treatment was necessary to fix the negligence. Was follow-up surgery required? Was the negligence only discovered after an MRI in the hospital? We need all those records so we can determine the extent of the damage.
   
   
4. Billing records: These records are necessary to determine legal damages and to create a medical cost projection. Billing records should be available separately from each provider or from your insurance company.  

Start gathering this documentation early. In Florida, medical malpractice has a two year statute of limitations. While that might seem like a long time, from a legal standpoint it is not. When you request records from a hospital or other provider, it often takes at least 30 days to receive the records.

Every case requires additional information, but medical malpractice most of all. No attorney alone can say whether medical malpractice has occurred. Florida Statute 766.101 requires the injured party to present an opinion by a medical expert in order to proceed with a lawsuit.

The medical expert is a doctor who specializes in the same area of medicine as the negligent doctor. The medical expert reviews the relevant medical records and determines if in fact there was medical malpractice.

If the medical expert says yes, then you can proceed with a lawsuit. If the medical expert says there was no malpractice then you can’t move forward or you need to find a new medical expert to review the case.
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Understandably, finding a medical expert takes time. Typically, we look for a medical expert from a state outside of Florida. This helps prevent any bias or conflicts of interest. Once we locate a medical expert, that expert reviews the medical records.

Depending on the expert and the amount of records (there are often thousands of pages) this can take about a month. Finally, when the expert opinion comes in, we can finally start the litigation process.
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If you’ve been a victim of medical negligence in Orlando or anywhere in the state of Florida call Attorney Andrew Graves for a free case evaluation or complete our online consultation form and we'll contact you.