When a hospital suffers from staffing shortages or excessive surgical volume or simple overcrowding, it can produce a situation rife with risk. One of those risks is early discharge for recovering patients that ultimately leads to further patient harm. When this happens, and when a patient is subsequently re-admitted due to that harm, it’s almost a text book case for medial malpractice.
Proving medical malpractice resulting from early discharge hinges on proving that releasing the patient prematurely fell below the medical standard of care. The question you must answer is whether a competent doctor under the same circumstances have taken the same action. Additionally, one would have to demonstrate that the patient’s condition worsened as a result of that early discharge, typically due to a lack of monitoring and access to the kind of swift emergency care they might have received while recouperating in the hospital.
Other questions you’ll want to answer include whether or not the physician scheduled a follow-up visit. Did they fail to properly diagnose or treat the patient? Did the patient undergo proper testing before their early discharge? Did the doctor or hospital facility fail to ensure the patient was medically stable before discharge?
Even if the answer to any of these questions was “no,” proving medical malpractice in such a case is still difficult. Winning a medical malpractice claim can require the support of expert testimony, official documentation of circumstances surrounding the patient’s evaluation, treatment and discharge, and more. For these reasons, it’s vitally important that you seek the counsel of an experience medical malpractice attorney like those at Bizzieri Law Offices in Chicago when seeking to file a claim of this sort. Whether documenting evidence or investigating factors that led to an early discharge or even negotiating a settlement with a hospital’s insurer, we have the experience necessary to recover the highest damages to which you are entitled.
An early hospital discharge may not, by itself, rise to the level of medical malpractice, nor does a patient readmission thereafter. There are many factors that need to be considered in determining fault and liability in these cases. Having the counsel of an experienced personal injury attorney is vital to proving your claim and winning the damages you deserve.
Call us at 773.881.9000 if you have questions about a medical malpractice claim. The initial consultation is free, and we do not collect a fee unless we recover damages for you.