Medical Malpractice is a general legal term that means a health care professional deviated from the normal standard of care and that deviation caused the patient an injury.  In Louisiana, medical malpractice falls under a law or statute called the Medical Malpractice Act.  That statute provides an outline for what health care professionals are covered under the law and how to file a medical malpractice claim with the State of Louisiana.

Anyone who has suffered injuries such as cerebral palsy, Erb’s palsy, brain injuries, delay of diagnosing a heart attack or cancer, all could fall under the Medical Malpractice Act, if those injuries occurred as a result of medical malpractice.

The value of your case depends upon how badly injured you are.  If you have cerebral palsy, birth injuries, preventable heart attacks or have a loved one that died, your recovery will be on the higher end.  If you sustained relatively minor injuries then your recovery will be less.

In general though, no one can collect more than $500,000 per medical malpractice claim.  This is what we call a damages cap that has been put in place by the Louisiana government.  So, even if a doctor, nurse or hospital mistakenly kills someone, the most his or her family can recover is half a million dollars.

However, if you do have cerebral palsy, erb’s palsy, hypoxia, preventable stroke or any other type of medical damages that will require future medical care, your future medical care will generally be covered, forever.  You are not paid directly for that care now, but, when the medical care happens.  So if you need a future surgery, that medical care will generally be paid for by the the Patient’s Compensation Fund.

Sometimes, we are able to negotiate a lump sum payment if future medical care is required.  This means, that in certain circumstances we can hire experts to predict your future medical needs and get the Patient’s Compensation Fund to pay for those needs when you win your Medical Malpractice claim.  They will usually pay it at a discount, kind of like Powerball.

If Powerball advertises it pays out $100,000,000 a winner will not see all of that money today.  It would see it over a thirty year period.

Or, they can choose to collect a lump sum payment today at a substantial discount.  So they would get $$50,000,000 today.

The best thing to do is to give us a call at 504-684-5455 so we can properly assess your claim and tell you what we think your case could be worth.

This is a really hard question to answer because no-one really knows.  But there are some hard truths you need to face, which is why we examine your case extremely hard before we can accept you as a client.

We like to say that the journey to winning your case is a marathon and not a sprint.  At a minimum, expect it to take 3 – 4 years from start to finish.

The reason: doctors, nurses and hospitals don’t settle claims.  They just fight these cases until the end without a good chance of settlement.

So…

If you are looking for quick money – a malpractice claim is not the answer.

If you are looking for Powerball type money – a malpractice claim is not the answer.

If you are looking for help with medical care right now – a malpractice claim is not the answer.

So what is a malpractice good for?

If you seek justice and want to get compensated for your injuries – but can be patient and take the wait.

There are better ways to make money, but there are not better ways to change the health care system.

The more we fight the doctors, nurses and hospital systems that provide sub-standard care, the greater the chances that they improve their care so others are not injured like you.  This mission means a lot to us – here is why.

Give us a call at 504-684-5455 so we can talk.

Louisiana’s Medical Malpractice Act states that a victim has 1 year to file a claim when they knew or should have known that medical malpractice has occurred.  Then you have up until 3 years past the date of the malpractice to file.  This is called prescription in our state (in other states it is called a Statute of Limitations).

So, what does this mean exactly?  Here is the breakdown:

Date of Malpractice:  1/1/2013

Date you discover Malpractice:  1/1/2015

Date you have to file before your claim prescribes:  1/1/2016

It’s a bit complicated so we wrote a blog post about it here and made a video about it here.

Or you can give us a call at 504-684-5455 and we can tell you exactly when a filing needs to happen.

Call now because its FREE!

Not really.

The doctor may have to start paying higher insurance rates to the insurance company that they use to protect themselves against malpractice claims, but they will be able to continue to practice medicine.

We make it a point to not agree to confidentiality so that other patients are on notice that this doctor had other cases filed against them – so they can be prepared and make an informed decision about their choice of doctor.

We can’t guarantee that a doctor will agree to this and settle the case with us too, but we push for it –  so that we can help others get the information that you didn’t have when you selected your doctor.

But, even if we don’t agree to confidentiality, as doctors commit more and more medical malpractice, their insurance rates will skyrocket and the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners will start to take notice.  Those guys can take away a doctors license.

So, your claim can help others, which is why it is important that you pursue it immediately.  A lot of times it is not about the money, it is about getting justice and being treated kindly and fairly.  Our systems are not perfect, but they do the job of getting some compensation and some justice when you have lost so much.

Call us today to learn more about how we can help you get justice at 504-684-5455.

You can file a claim on your own, but we don’t recommend it.  And, its not because of why you think.

Truthfully, we are not in this for the money.  In fact, we bet when you were looking around for a malpractice attorney you were hard pressed to find one and got to us pretty fast. That’s because most personal injury lawyers prefer car accident cases.  They are mostly easy to settle and make a large wage in a short time.

While we love car accident cases too, we are passionate about Medical Malpractice cases because they are personal to our principal owner Ramesh Reddy.  His brother died in a hospital and he is married to and a son of two doctors.

So, he understands both sides unusually well: how it feels to be a victim and to be the doctor.  So, he is fair in the cases he takes.  Catastrophic injury cases that have merit are what he focuses his practice on.  And, it takes a lot of experience, time and resources to bring a case to trial.

Therefore, we don’t recommend filing a case on your own.  It’s no risk to you to give us a call and get a free assessment.  After that, if we decide that your case has a good chance of succeeding, we will pay for all the up front costs and only get paid if we win.

So, give us a call at 504-684-5455 to find out if you have a case, today!

Call now because you won’t regret it.

The Medical Review Panel is a group of three health care professional who review your case and determine whether or not the doctor, nurse or hospital you sued committed medical malpractice.  The Medical Malpractice Act devotes a section to how this panel is convened for the purposes of assessing your malpractice claim.

One do is chosen by the Plaintiff, another doctor is chosen by the Defendant and the third doctor is chosen by both doctors.  There are some rules if there is disagreement, but, generally, this is how the panel is formed.  The doctors must be licensed in the State of Louisiana and must practice in the specialty of the doctor who you are suing.

So if an obstetrician or mid-wife injured your baby at birth, then the health care providers comprising the panel must be the same.  This way, it is presumed panel members will have in-depth knowledge about the standards of care required to assess the Defendant’s  actions.

The Medical Review Panel is allowed to make only four determinations:

 (1) The evidence supports the conclusion that the defendant or defendants failed to comply with the appropriate       standard of care as charged in the complaint.

(2) The evidence does not support the conclusion that the defendant or defendants failed to meet the applicable standard of care as charged in the complaint.

(3) That there is a material issue of fact, not requiring expert opinion, bearing on liability for consideration by the court.

(4) When Paragraph (1) of this Subsection is answered in the affirmative, that the conduct complained of was or was not a factor of the resultant damages. If such conduct was a factor, whether the plaintiff suffered: (a) any disability and the extent and duration of the disability, and (b) any permanent impairment and the percentage of the impairment.

In about 95% of the cases, the Medical Review Panel finds in favor of the defendant doctors.  So, it is important that you make the best case possible the first time, so you don’t lose your chance at the panel.  And, even if you lose – which happens in most instances – you can still file a law suit in court, within 90 days of being notified by mail that the panel ruled against you.  After that, you are likely out of luck.

If you have any questions about Medical Review Panels, how they are formed and what to do to ensure you get the best chance of winning your clam, give us a call at 504-684-5455 so you can get the answers to your questions for FREE.

The Patient’s Compensation Fund is responsible for paying victims of medical malpractice.

Like most injury lawyers out there we only get paid if we can recover money for you.

Generally speaking that means we pay for all the expenses of bringing your case to the review panel and trial.  That means we pay for things like:

1. expert witnesses
2. depositions
3. court costs

These costs could be upwards of $30,000 dollars or more by the time trial is complete.  This is the risk we take to earn the right to take your case to court.  If we lose, we lose all that money and you owe us nothing.  Conversely, if we win, we get paid back our costs plus 40% of the total award that we win for you.

So, for example if we get you $500,000 this is how it could get split up:

$200,000 fee to us (40% of $500K)

$30,000 paid for costs

$270,000 paid to you ($500K – $230K = $270K).

This is just an example and each case and situation is unique and different.  But we want to be as transparent as possible so you know how much everyone gets paid from the start.

After all, you need to know the track before you can run it – and this is one marathon you can’t lose.