As a Missouri and Illinois personal injury attorney with a substantial amount of my practice dealing with Missouri medical malpractice cases or Illinois medical negligence cases, I screen dozens of cases a month from people and families who have been devastated by a medical mistake, neglect, or sometimes just a perceived mistake. Most common are misdiagnosis of an elderly patient's medical condition which leads to the failure to treat critical health conditions and a resultant death. Common real life cases I have dealt with recently:
Misdiagnosis of bronchopneumonia:
An elderly patient was suffering from flu like symptoms, her doctor noted trouble breathing, cough, fatigue, and most importantly, difficulty breathing. Doctor did not perform any diagnostics told the patient to take Tylenol and push fluids and then sent her home.
Tragically the patient died within 24 hours of bronchopnueumonia. Doctor was negligent as she failed to even do a simple chest x-ray which would have revealed fluid in the lungs and required the patient to be admitted to the hospital.
Misdiagnosis of abdominal aortic aneurysm and other heart conditions:
Becoming more common, at least in my experience, is the misdiagnosis of serious heart conditions as heart burn or indigestion. In most cases a chest CT would rule out life threatening conditions or find them so appropriate treatment can be administered. I currently have several heart disease misdiagnosis cases under investigation.
Limitations of Awards:
Recently, a jury awarded the family of a deceased 45 year old steel worker $4.45 million dollars as they found the doctor was negligent for failure to diagnose a heart condition which would have been found on a chest CT and was consistent with the symptoms the patient was complaining of. (Medical malpractice verdict article)
Now these awards are based on medical expenses, lost support and lost wages, and pain and suffering of the victim and the family. Often these awards are touted by insurance companies as excessive, however, in this case the verdict was absolutely not excessive, but what you will never hear from the insurance and medical lobby, is that these awards are drastically limited by statutory damage caps. For example, the above case the $4.45 million was reduced to $1.25 million as medical malpractice damages are capped by law.
Many clients come to me with legitimate cases of medical malpractice, however, if the malpractice ended up in less than $100,000 - $300,000 or so of medical bills then the case is economically unfeasible to pursue as the cost of pursuit will far outweigh any recovery. Prime example, clear medical malpractice resulting in the death of an elderly person with no dependants, and the death was quick and did not result in a lot of additional medical bills. Liability may be clear, but the case is often not worth pursuing, unless the negligence is egregious, because of the the caps of $350,000 in Missouri. That's right, if your parent or grandparent die because of medical malpractice and they have no dependants (as elderly people often do not) and they do not rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills related to the malpractice, then their life is worth $350,000 in Missouri, a disturbing thought.
ARTICLE / STUDY (.pdf format) - Medical Malpractice Caps Have not Resulted in Reduction of Medical Malpractice Premiums Despite Major Reduced Payouts by Medical Malpractice Insurers.
The above study shows the flaws of the medical malpractice lawsuit myth that lawsuits are raising insurance premiums driving doctors out of the business and raising your health care costs.
Conclusion of the study: "There is no doubt that the implementation of non-economic damage caps has resulted in lower claim payouts for insurers. For caps to be considered successful, however, the lower payouts would need to translate into lower med mal premiums for medical professionals. Unfortunately, that has not been the case due to the continuing presence of other, far more significant factors driving premium rates higher."
