Chicago Emergency Room Errors Attorneys
Emergency room visits are stressful and frightening experiences. Typically, emergency room staff are well-prepared to handle any situation, and they try to provide the best care possible. However, with the large number of patients that come into the ER, it can be difficult for medical professionals to take the necessary time for every individual. Problems such as overcrowding, understaffing, and negligence leads to between five and 10 million emergency room errors every year. These errors can cause severe health concerns and further endanger the life of a patient already in dire need of care.
Medical professionals have a duty to provide an appropriate standard of care in any setting. Despite the chaotic nature of an emergency room, no patient should go untreated. The Chicago emergency room error attorneys at Karlin, Fleisher & Falkenberg, LLC understand the devastating consequences that medical errors can have. They are prepared to help you fight back against malpractice you or a loved one has faced and help you receive justice. Give us a call today at 312-346-8620 to schedule a confidential consultation.
Why You Need an Emergency Room Errors Attorney
When doctors or other medical professionals make mistakes and fail to give you the care you need, you are the one left with the consequences. The mistakes may be serious and leave you with long-lasting or even permanent injury. When the hospital and emergency room staff provided sub-standard care, they should be held accountable for their negligence.
Medical malpractice cases are challenging to pursue, and emergency room malpractice cases can be especially challenging. You must prove that the medical professionals that harmed you failed to provide the same standard of care that other, reasonably skilled medical professionals would have provided when working under similar circumstances.
Emergency room professionals work under tough conditions, and this may actually give those workers some leeway in their case. For example, an emergency room doctor may not be expected to run the same number of tests that a doctor in other circumstances would be expected to run, given the time pressures that ER doctors face.
At Karlin, Fleisher & Falkenberg, LLC, we’re highly experienced with emergency room injuries, and we know what it takes to develop a strong case. Here are some of the ways we can help you:
- Use legal recourse to gather documentation and prove that the emergency room staff failed to provide you with the expected standard of care, and it resulted in harm. We’ll also hire medical experts to review your case and identify how the staff failed to provide you the care you needed.
- We’ll identify the full value of your case. We’ll work with experts to identify all of the damages, or losses, you experienced as a result of the malpractice, and we’ll secure the evidence we need to support your claim for fair compensation.
- We’ll negotiate assertively and skillfully with the hospital or medical professional’s insurance company for full compensation. An insurance adjuster’s job is to give you the lowest settlement possible or to deny your claim outright. We’ll leverage the evidence we gather, as well as our experience in these cases, to prevent that from happening.
- We’ll prepare your case to go to court in the event that the insurer fails to offer you the settlement you need. When you hire our firm to represent you, the insurance company will know to take your case very seriously.
Take action today to make sure the hospital staff of the emergency room is held responsible for your injuries. Contact us to get started.
Common Types of Errors
Approximately 100 million people visit emergency rooms each year. Patients go to the emergency room with a variety of symptoms and emergency rooms are meant to be prepared for this wide range of problems. However, it is difficult to provide adequate care to a multitude of people as quickly as the situation calls for and human error is abundant. Errors can result in extended hospital stays, worsened symptoms, and in the worst cases, death. Some of the most common types of errors that emergency room staff make include:
- Misdiagnosis
- Providing incorrect medication
- Delays in treatment
- Failure to fully examine a patient
- Incorrect treatment
- Surgical errors
- Downplaying a patient’s symptoms
- Misinterpreting test results
- Failure to order appropriate tests or treatment
- Prematurely transferring or releasing patients because of financial reasons
Some of these types of errors may occur despite the doctor’s best efforts, such as when a patient’s symptoms are complex or extremely severe. However, when these errors occur because a doctor did not perform to the best of their ability, they should be held responsible.
Causes of Emergency Room Errors
When you go to the emergency room, you are seeking urgent help, and you likely aren’t even thinking about the possibility of something going wrong. Emergency room doctors and medical professionals do make careless mistakes sometimes, however. Below are a few of the common causes of emergency room errors:
- Overcrowding: This is a big issue when going to the emergency room. There are a lot of other people in the emergency room who need attention, and this could overwhelm the staff. It can also result in your receiving delayed treatment, which can contribute to your condition worsening.
- Rushing from patient to patient: A result of overcrowding is the doctors and staff rushing from one patient to another. The staff may just be trying to get you out as fast as they can, overlooking crucial details, which could lead to errors and injury.
- Fatigue: The doctors and staff may have worked long hours. They may be fatigued and have a hard time thinking clearly, which can result in negligent mistakes.
- Veering from normal standards: Doctors and staff may, for some reason, veer from their standard protocols. This could be due to a lack of training, time limitations, or trying something new, but this could lead to dangerous results or injuries.
- Failure to check a patient’s medical history: The medical staff may fail to ask about allergies or medications or fail to ask for and check your medical history, which may inform the type of care you need to prevent harm.
- Failure to communicate: When time is tight, accurate and precise communication becomes even more crucial. Failure to communicate information from a patient’s medical history, or the correct information about the patient’s injury, could result in a serious error.
Whatever the reason an error occurred, you do not deserve to suffer because of the negligence of a trained professional. Missed work, time away from family, pain, and suffering are things you may have to deal with. We’ll help you get the compensation you need to relieve your financial burdens, so you can focus on your recovery.
What Types of Compensation Are Available?
You put a lot of trust in doctors and their staff when you go to the emergency room. You put your well-being and sometimes your life in their hands. Doctors go through extensive training and schooling before joining an emergency room setting. It is their responsibility to care for you and help improve your health.
When they fail, you may suffer an injury, additional and exorbitant medical costs, lost time from work, and a loss of trust in the medical system. No one likes going to the doctor, let alone the emergency room, but they do so because they need medical help.
When, far from making you better, the emergency room medical staff actually makes you worse, you deserve to be compensated for your losses and the financial hardship related to your injury so that you can take the time you need to heal.
Below are some of the types of compensation your attorney may be able to get for you:
- Lost wages and income due to hospital stay
- Medical bills, which includes any that come in the future
- Pain and suffering
- Diminished quality of life
- Disability
- Emotional distress
- Many more
Don’t hesitate to give us a call today to start building your case.
Contact a Chicago Emergency Room Errors Attorney
Not only are emergency room errors physically and emotionally devastating, they can also have a significant impact on your financial well-being. If you or a loved one has suffered due to an emergency room error, a Chicago emergency room error attorney at Karlin, Fleisher & Falkenberg, LLC can help. To discuss the specifics of your claim, contact us at 312-346-8620 today.