Everyone is prone to lapses in judgment and careless actions from time to time, no matter their age or level of education. However, patients can be severely injured when a doctor, surgeon, pharmacist, or other medical professional makes an error. Recovering from a medical mistake can be costly and leave lasting physical and emotional scars.
Exercising your legal rights by filing a medical malpractice claim can be essential to your recovery. Earning compensation is an acknowledgment of your losses and helps you meet the financial burdens caused by your injury. However, the path to damages in a medical malpractice case isn’t always easy. Understanding how the process typically works can help you stay the course when challenges arise in your case.
Understanding Damages In Georgia Medical Malpractice Cases
A successful medical malpractice case will result in your receiving payment for the harm you suffered in the form of damages. This money is intended to reimburse you for the economic and non-economic losses you’ve experienced. The amount you can expect to recover in your case will depend primarily on how your medical provider’s error has affected you.
Economic Damages
Any award you receive through your medical malpractice case will consider the financial losses you’ve sustained due to your injury.
You stand to be reimbursed for the costs of necessary treatments and procedures, including hospital stays, specialist fees, and medications. This amount can be substantial, especially considering that an average three-day hospital stay costs around $30,000.
You may also need additional care to address any physical harm you sustained. For example, suppose that your doctor was supposed to replace your right knee but replaced your left knee instead. Your right knee would still need to be replaced, and you shouldn’t have to bear the associated costs.
Additionally, a medical error could prevent you from working for weeks or months, which is also a compensable expense.
Let’s say you earn $25 per hour and work 40 hours per week, and your malpractice-related injuries leave you unable to work for six weeks. You could have the $6,000 you would have earned during these six weeks paid back to you due to your inability to work.
Other costs you might recoup as part of your claim include:
- Follow-up visits to monitor your condition
- Prescription medication
- Any counseling or therapeutic services you require
- The difference between your previous and current wages if you see a reduction in income
- Assistive devices or tools you need to perform daily tasks
- Home healthcare assistance or other services to help you care for yourself
Your medical malpractice lawyer will use your bills, invoices, estimates, and other objective evidence to support your claim for economic damages. The more apparent the connection between your medical provider’s negligence and your resultant losses, the greater your chances of recovering the full amount of these expenses.
Non-Economic Damages
Your compensation must also account for the mental and emotional toll your injuries have inflicted on you. Just because the impact of medical negligence on one person’s quality of life can differ significantly from another’s doesn’t make either experience invalid — both victims deserve fair and adequate compensation.
In considering the non-economic value of your malpractice claim, you and your attorney must describe the intangible effects of your injuries to a judge or jury. This can be accomplished by highlighting:
- Your disposition or outlook on life before and after the medical error
- Activities and hobbies you can no longer enjoy because of your injuries
- How symptoms of depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affect your day-to-day activities
- Goals and aspirations you can’t achieve because of your provider’s malpractice
In cases involving permanent disabilities, these sorts of non-economic damages can be substantial. The more limiting the injury and the younger the victim (and therefore the amount of capability and life experience denied them), the higher these damages tend to be.
For instance, a cancer misdiagnosis that robs a young mother of the chance to treat her breast cancer at an early stage would likely result in more non-economic damages than a complicated wrist surgery that leaves an elderly patient with lingering neurological pain.
Like many other states, Georgia had previously passed a law that limited the amount of non-economic damages available in medical malpractice cases. The stated goal of this legislation was to help control the cost of healthcare by limiting the amount providers paid for medical malpractice insurance.
However, the Georgia Supreme Court later ruled that such limits on damages were unconstitutional. In a landmark 2010 decision, the court found that medical malpractice plaintiffs could receive compensation for the full amount of non-economic damages a judge or jury believed they were owed.
Calculating And Recovering Your Case’s True Value
When you file your medical malpractice claim, your lawyer will include a request for damages that reflects your economic and non-economic losses. The sum of these two types of damages represents your case’s total value.
Having an accurate sense of your case’s worth will help you and your legal representative make a more informed decision about whether to accept a particular settlement offer or take your case to trial.
Medical Malpractice Cases Can Be Worth Substantial Sums
The value of any personal injury case depends on the severity of the victim’s losses and how those losses impact their life.
Medical malpractice cases are slightly different in that they have the potential to profoundly and permanently affect your life. The economic losses can include medical expenses, rehabilitative costs, lost wages, and other similar expenses, easily reaching tens of thousands of dollars or more.
In the same way, non-economic damages can quickly skyrocket when medical errors permanently harm a young and healthy individual who loses significant opportunities as a result.
Working with a skilled medical malpractice lawyer can improve your chances of recovering the full compensation you’re due. An attorney can also provide valuable assistance in compiling documents and other evidence needed to support your claim for damages.
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