Clarksville Medical Malpractice Lawyer

If you suffer an injury due to the actions or negligence of a healthcare professional, you may need a lawyer who has both the experience and expertise necessary to ensure you receive adequate and fair compensation. Call a Clarksville medical malpractice lawyer today to discuss what happened to you and your options for pursuing a claim. A qualified personal injury attorney could pursue a positive outcome for you.

Basics of Medical Malpractice

In Tennessee, the term “medical malpractice” refers to any cause of action that arises from the failure of a healthcare professional to adhere to the standard of care for their profession, thereby causing an injury to a patient. This term, as well as a variety of other aspects of pursuing a medical malpractice claim in the state, are codified in the Tennessee Health Care Liability Act (HCLA), which is sometimes referred to as the Tennessee Medical Malpractice Act.

A Clarksville medical malpractice claim can be initiated against any healthcare professional who was involved in the treatment of the injured patient, including doctors, nurses, doctor assistants, and lab technicians. Treatment can encompass a variety of services such as providing a diagnosis, prescribing a medication, reading an X-ray or an MRI, and undertaking a surgical procedure.

Filing a Medical Malpractice Claim

Pursuant to the HCLA, individuals who want to pursue medical malpractice claims in Clarksville must first comply with several procedural requirements. In addition to proving that a healthcare provider has breached the applicable standard of care for their profession, a claimant must also be able to prove that the breach resulted in an injury—a term which can refer to a wide variety of detriments or harms to the body, including those related to anesthesia, childbirth, misdiagnoses and delayed diagnoses, and surgical mistakes.

Medical malpractice claims are also subject to strict statute-of-limitations requirements. All such claims must be brought within one year of when the patient first discovered the injury and within three years of when the malpractice actually occurred. However, there is an exception to this three-year limitation for cases involving foreign objects that are left inside a patient during a procedure.

Pursuing Damages for Medical Malpractice

Under the HCLA, patients may seek several types of damages for medical malpractice claims. Compensatory damages compensate injured patients for certain types of out-of-pocket expenses such as the cost of any injury-related medical care and rehabilitation, lost wages, and lost earning capacity.

For more qualitative losses, non-economic damages compensate injured patients for intangibles such as pain and suffering, while punitive damages are intended to punish a healthcare professional for egregious and/or reckless actions such as fraud or intentional infliction of harm. Punitive damages are relatively rare and are usually limited to malpractice cases involving trials. A qualified Clarksville medical malpractice lawyer could help an individual pursue the damages that they deserve.

How A Clarksville Medical Malpractice Attorney Could Help

If you believe that you suffered an injury because of an error on the part of a medical or healthcare professional, it may be important that you contact a Clarksville Medical Malpractice Lawyer who is familiar with this type of case. Given all the special procedural requirements for medical malpractice claims in Tennessee, there are many ways for such claims to be denied long before the merits of the claims are even considered.

Successfully pursuing a Clarksville medical malpractice claim requires a combination of legal skills and medical expertise than an experienced attorney may be able to provide. Call today to get started on your case by scheduling an initial consultation.