Difference between Malpractice and Wrongful Death in Medical Terms

Difference between Malpractice and Wrongful Death in Medical Terms

In U.S., as one of the nation that has large population per city, it also means about the large death records every year as well. As more than 2.8 million average number of deaths are recorded every year and in the last year, it has exponentially increased to more than 3.3 million total recorded deaths. These deaths has various reasons such as heart disease,all types of cancer, unintentional injuries, and medical malpractice and errors. 

According to a study, numbers are climbing regarding preventable hospital deaths at 250,000 deaths per year which is scary and decreases your trust to depend your life and safety to medical professionals anymore. Since medical malpractice oftentimes leads to a patient's death, it is recommended to hold and rely to legal steps for compensation and remove confusion that is felt at the moment. With legal assistance from an experienced lawyer, filing of either medical malpractice claim or wrongful death claim may be legally cleared in an instant. 

Ryan LLP is an Ohio based injury attorney firm that represents victims of personal injury caused by car accidents, medical malpractice due to medical professional's negligence, and even wrongful death against large companies, agencies and even individuals. We have 40 years of experience doing our service in this field and evidently successful with our civil litigations. Call our office now for free legal consultation. 

What is the distinction of medical malpractice from wrongful death and its relation? 

Medical malpractice is widely used term for an occurrence where a healthcare provider or medical institution puts the patient on a dangerous or harmful situation through failing to adhere to common standard of care. Standard of care means the norm degree of care and passable skill of an average health care provider that practices health care services that applies general and specific medical knowledge that is required when taking care of someone. 

If there is an apparent violation to the standard of care, the plaintiff in a possible occuring lawsuit may show how things wouldn't go that way if the healthcare provider is more careful or in other words, how the malpractice could have been preventable. Medical malpractice occur in many manner such as:

• Misdiagnosis of minor or major condition
  
  
• Surgical Errors
  
  
• Failure to treat a minor or major condition
  
  
• Birth Injuries and Preventable Complications 
  
  
• Medication Errors and Anesthesia Errors

As previously mentioned, extreme cases of medical malpractice to a certain serious health condition tend to result in death. In a study of John Hopkins, more than 250,000 people in U.S. die yearly because of medical errors. Bad conditions that has bad provision of care and overdosage can obviously lead to death, which are both preventable but new and young health care operated care and bad work flow are just common and is a systematic error which should be fixed immediately. 

Wrongful Death

On the other hand, wrongful death is the death of a person caused by negligence or malicious intent of the defendant (another person or organization). Any of those negligent and malicious actions that led to death is a basis for an eligibility of the case for wrongful death and persons who were left behind the victim has the right to file a claim for wrongful death or in some case, medical malpractice as some wrongful death cases results from some form of medical malpractices.

What is their differences?

Their distinction is far from each other and can be easily identified when experienced. The main distinction is that there is no direct filing of wrongful death from the victim as he/she is deceased, therefore damages are directed to the surviving family member such as spouse or the closest of kin in succession. While in medical malpractice, the victim that intends to file for a claim is present and oftentimes, can file for himself if he can manage to do so and if not, it is probably because of his inability to do so and recovering from injuries caused by said medical malpractice. In addition, wrongful death settlement pay is marginally high compared to medical malpractice claims and is not capped by most insurers which concerned by these payments such as: 

• Medical bills from previous care and services provided for the said illness or injury beforehand
  
  
• Funeral and burial costs
  
  
• Potential loss of financial support from the deceased person
  
  
• Mental and emotional suffering caused by the event of death
  
  
• Loss of emotional support such as care, support and other matter that the person could offer if he/she is alive

To summarize, the main differences between to claims, medical malpractice and wrongful death, is the amount or value of potential recovered settlement pay and the time allowed to file the claim. 

Call your Lawyer 

If ever you or one of your family members has been involved of a confusing case of wrongful death caused by medical malpractice, you can always refer help from a professional experienced injury lawyer to smoothen things out. 

Ryan LLP is an Ohio based injury lawyer that represents victims of personal injury caused by car accidents, medical malpractice due to medical professional's negligence, and even wrongful death against large companies, agencies and even individuals. We have 40 years of experience doing our service in this field and evidently successful with our civil litigations. Call our office now for free legal consultation.