If your cancer was not diagnosed properly, you should immediately begin the treatment you need for your condition and seek a legal assessment of the situation. Prompt treatment is key when it comes to a diagnosis as serious as cancer, and a delay of this magnitude can prove life-altering. If the missed diagnosis rose to the level of medical negligence, you could have important legal rights.
Our experienced Buffalo medical malpractice attorneys at Campbell & Associates welcome the opportunity to help.
Steps to Take if You Believe that Your Doctor Missed Your Cancer?
If you believe a doctor missed or delayed your cancer diagnosis, focus first on your health, then on protecting your potential claim.
- Get the treatment you need now: Follow up with an oncologist or another qualified specialist. If you’ve lost trust in your original provider, get a second opinion from a physician outside that practice.
- Request your medical records: New York law gives you the right to copies of your records. Ask for office notes, test results, imaging, pathology reports, and referral records from every provider involved in your care.
- Write down your timeline: Note when your symptoms started, when you reported them, what tests were or weren’t ordered, and what each provider told you. Dates matter in these cases.
- Keep track of your losses: Save medical bills, insurance statements, and records of missed work.
- Talk to a medical malpractice lawyer early: Filing deadlines apply. Before a lawsuit can be filed, New York also requires an attorney to consult a qualified medical professional about whether the case has merit. Starting early gives your lawyer time to have that review done properly.
Is a Missed Cancer Diagnosis Always Medical Malpractice?
No. Doctors are held to a professional standard of care, meaning they must provide the level of care a reasonably careful provider with similar training would provide under similar circumstances. A missed diagnosis becomes malpractice when the provider falls short of that standard, and the failure causes you harm.
You may have a claim if your provider failed to diagnose cancer when they reasonably should have based on:
- Your symptoms
- The results of your diagnostic tests
- Your medical history
Failure-to-diagnose cases can take several forms. A provider may miss the cancer entirely and send you home with a clean bill of health. They may diagnose a less serious condition, leading to unnecessary treatment while the cancer goes untreated. They may also fail to order appropriate tests, misread results, or fail to follow up on abnormal findings.
How Long Do You Have to File a Missed Cancer Diagnosis Claim in New York?
New York generally gives patients 30 months (two and a half years) to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. For most claims, that clock starts on the date of the negligent act or, if you continued treating with the same provider for the same condition, the date that treatment ended.
Missed cancer diagnoses are treated differently. Under Lavern’s Law, the 30-month deadline for a failure to diagnose cancer or a malignant tumor starts when you knew, or reasonably should have known, about the negligent act and that it caused you harm. However, the lawsuit can’t be filed more than seven years after the negligent act, no matter when you discovered it. These rules can be complicated to apply, so it’s important to speak with a medical malpractice lawyer as soon as you suspect your cancer was missed.
Our Experienced Buffalo Medical Malpractice Lawyers Can Help
A missed cancer diagnosis can prove devastating, and your physical, financial, and emotional losses can be immense. Our formidable Buffalo medical malpractice attorneys at Campbell & Associates appreciate the significance of your claim, and we will leave no stone unturned in our focused pursuit of the compensation you deserve. We are on your side and here to help, so please don’t put off reaching out for more information about what we can do for you by contacting us online or giving our firm a call at 716-992-2222 today.
