Boise Medical Malpractice Lawyers

If medical care did not make you better, would you have a medical malpractice case? There is no easy answer to that question, but consider a few general observations. Medical malpractice cases require you to prove that the doctor did something wrong or that the healthcare provider did something wrong that prevented you from making a recovery or that actually caused harm in the course of the care being provided. The simple fact that you didn’t get better as a result of the care provided really is not a very strong indication that you have a medical malpractice case.

Medical malpractice cases are complicated and they require significant injuries in order for them to be cases that lend themselves to the litigation process. There’s no simple answer to the question of whether your failure to recover is the fault of the doctor. The best answer is you need to consult a lawyer who is experienced with medical malpractice cases and they can give you the guidance you need in order to decide whether you have a case worth looking into further or not. If you have questions about medical malpractice cases, please contact the Hepworth Holzer law firm. We’re experienced with those cases and would love to help you.

Are there any special considerations that one should have in mind when choosing a medical malpractice attorney in Idaho? The simple answer to that question is it is important to hire a lawyer who has a well-established history of handling medical malpractice cases. Medical malpractice cases have multiple special rules that apply to them in the state of Idaho. You need to have a lawyer in Idaho who is familiar with all those special rules, and that all underscores the importance of hiring someone who has handled multiple medical malpractice cases and focuses a substantial portion of their practice on handling medical malpractice cases. An experienced medical malpractice lawyer is critical to having a good experience with a lawyer handling a medical malpractice case.

At Hepworth Holzer several lawyers in our firm have substantial experience with medical malpractice cases and we would be happy to help you with answering your questions or giving you the guidance you need your situation.

How much does it cost to file a medical malpractice case in Idaho? The filing of the lawsuit is not necessarily particularly expensive, but once you file the lawsuit, then there’s substantial expense. The term filing a lawsuit, typically for a medical malpractice case, means that you have gathered the medical records, submitted the medical records for review to one or more medical experts, made a determination along with your lawyer that it makes sense to proceed with pursuing the medical malpractice case, and have actually filed the lawsuit.

Those initial steps can involve thousands of dollars, but probably those initial steps can be completed for less than $10,000 and in many cases for less than $5,000. Filing a medical malpractice case requires investment of money with medical professionals and with gathering information before you can even file the lawsuit, and that’s just the start. The expense of the process takes off dramatically from there, and most medical malpractice cases involve the investment of tens of thousands of dollars, if not more than a hundred thousand dollars with certain cases.

Because of the costs involved with medical malpractice cases, it’s important to investigate them thoroughly and to consult with a knowledgeable and experienced medical malpractice lawyer so that you’re making a good decision whether to file the case or not. At Hepworth Holzer we have substantial experience with handling medical malpractice cases and we can help you with making a decision of whether it makes sense to start the process of investigating your case or not.

Is there anything special about medical malpractice cases in Idaho? The answer is yes. Ask yourself, can a lawyer who does not have substantial experience with handling medical malpractice cases be a good choice of a lawyer to handle your case? The answer to that is no. You need a lawyer who has substantial experience with handling a medical malpractice case because there are multiple special rules that apply to medical malpractice cases. The cases are complex and require somebody who has handled similar cases to be able to recognize the issues that the case will involve, and you need a lawyer who can help you find the right experts. You need a lawyer who can appear in court and do a good job of representing you in court.

Medical malpractice cases are special for a variety of reasons. As such, you need an experienced and competent medical malpractice lawyer who knows all the special issues that go along with handling a medical malpractice case.

If you have questions about a medical malpractice case, contact the Hepworth Holzer Law Firm. We have a lot of experience with those cases and we can help you understand what you need to know to decide whether moving forward with your case makes sense or not.

If you live in a small town and you have a relationship with your doctor in your small town, but you feel that your doctor has made an error that has caused you harm, what can you do about that situation? That is a challenging situation. We have found that when the case involves the relationship between a doctor and a patient in a small town, those cases can be very, very difficult cases. I’d say the reasons can vary, but I’d say the most obvious reason is that the jury that will be impaneled to consider the case will likewise come from that smaller community or the county where that small community is located, and many of the residents of those smaller communities and those smaller counties will know the doctor, respect the doctor, and perhaps even have a doctor/patient relationship with the doctor. That presents a very challenging dynamic that has to be evaluated carefully.

There are some solutions that can be identified to overcome that challenge. For example, it could be that the doctor is an employee of the hospital, so rather than name the individual doctor, you can name the hospital entity for the mistake made by the doctor who is an employee of the hospital. That’s one possible way to address the small town issue. That may not be an adequate way to address the issue, it’s just a possible solution to consider. There are certain situations where you can file the case with a court outside the community where the doctor resides. It could be that the small community you live in is just a small community in a much larger county, and the case that you file will be in that much larger county, and it’s not likely that residents from your small community would be chosen to participate on the jury that your case involves.

Again, these are complicated questions that you need a trained professional to help you evaluate, but the question is a good one, and it’s an important one. It’s a question that a good lawyer would recognize and would discuss with you and help you understand whether that dynamic is so problematic that it prevents you from being able to likely be successful with your claim. Again, these medical malpractice cases, whether they’re in small communities or small counties or large communities and a large county, they’re difficult cases. They’re complicated cases that involve complex issues, and you need a qualified professional to help you evaluate and understand the best course of action to take.

At Hepworth Holzer, we have experienced lawyer who have handled medical malpractice cases throughout the state of Idaho, in smaller communities as well as in the larger areas, and we’d be happy to evaluate your specific situation to help you understand whether it makes sense to pursue your case or not.

What types of damages can you recover in a medical malpractice case in Idaho? The answer is that all medical malpractice cases involve the recovery of medical expenses that had to be incurred due to the medical error involved. In some cases, those medical expenses are very substantial and other cases those medical expenses may not be nearly as substantial.

For example, let’s say that the patient died as a result of the medical error involved; the medical expense leading up to the death may not have been significant, but that doesn’t mean the case isn’t significant. The case could be very significant if there’s a death involved, so wrongful death cases are a specific category of medical malpractice cases that have their own set of damages that can be recovered. In a non-death medical malpractice case, typically those cases involve recovery of medical expenses, both past, meaning from the time of the incident to the time of the trial, and future, meaning from the time of trial into the indefinite future. Recovery of medical expenses is an important category of compensation.

Many people are harmed to the point where it interferes with their ability to work, so recovery of lost wages or lost income is an important category of damages that are commonly sought in medical malpractice cases. Another category is what I’ll generally refer to as pain and suffering. That’s a term that literally refers to the physical pain and suffering that you experienced throughout the course of whatever occurred. It doesn’t mean just the incident that resulted in the harm; it also involves the long-lasting effects of the harm. There are other damages other than the physical pain and suffering. It’s the disruption of your relationship with other family members. It’s the inability to engage in normal day-to-day activities. It’s the inability to engage in recreational habits or undertakings that you’re fond of doing. In addition to the out-of-pocket losses that come with medical expenses or lost income, the pain and suffering damages can be the most important damages that you’re claiming, and they can be substantial.

In Idaho, unfortunately, our legislature has adopted limits on how much you can recover for pain and suffering. In a medical malpractice case, there is no limit on how much you can recover for medical expenses that you’ve incurred or for income that you have lost. There’s not an artificial cap that applies to the loss of those types of damages. When it comes to pain and suffering, however, Idaho’s legislature has adopted a cap that limits how much you can recover, and the current amount of that cap is in the neighborhood of $350,000. What that means is your injury could be catastrophic and could have life-long consequences for you, but the damages you can recover for pain and suffering for that injury can be limited, legally, by laws adopted by our legislature.

It’s important to be familiar with these laws and important to understand that, at the very outset, you should consult with an experienced medical malpractice lawyer who is familiar with those laws and can explain those to you as you’re discussing whether you want to proceed with your case when you first consult with them. If you have questions about damages and medical malpractice cases, feel free to contact the Hepworth Holzer Law Firm and we’ll do our best to answer your questions.

The question is, what does the term medical malpractice mean in Idaho? The term medical malpractice refers to a medical professional, whether it’s a doctor, nurse, nurse practitioner, or some other type of healthcare provider – the question regarding what is medical malpractice is if the medical professional has failed to provide care that complies with the standards expected of similarly trained medical professionals, and if the failure to provide competent care causes serious injury, that is a situation that is typically referred to with the term medical malpractice. It’s important to recognize that mistakes happen, and sometimes those mistakes don’t result in any harm at all. If a medical professional makes a mistake but it doesn’t cause harm, that would not be a case that makes sense to pursue because there’s been no harm.

There are cases where the medical professional makes a mistake and it causes harm but not significant harm, or it’s harm that can be corrected without significant additional care or significant disruption of the individual’s life. Again, it’s likely that that type of case is not going to be a case that a lawyer can help you with.

These are complicated questions, and there’s no simple formula for what a medical malpractice case is that you should pursue and what case is not a case you should pursue. The answer is to contact an experienced medical malpractice lawyer. They can answer your questions and can give you good guidance as far as the next steps to take or not take. We at Hepworth Holzer are very experienced with medical malpractice cases. We’ve been handling medical malpractice cases for decades, and we would be happy to answer your questions and give you good guidance if you have questions about medical malpractice.

What happens during the course of a medical malpractice case in Idaho? The answer is that there are several steps that almost all medical malpractice cases will involve. The first step of the process is gathering all of the information related to the incident in question. That typically involves gathering medical records, gathering imagining studies, gathering any information that relates to the incident that is believed to be the medical malpractice incident in question. That’s step one; you have to gather the underlying information.

Step two is that information has to be reviewed by a medical professional in order to make a determination of whether there has been medical malpractice. There are lawyers who have substantial experience with handling medical malpractice cases, but those lawyers don’t have the medical expertise to tell you whether you have a medical malpractice or not without first consulting with a medical professional who specializes in the medical issues involved in your case. Before the lawyer can even help you determine whether you have a viable medical malpractice case or not, it will be necessary for that lawyer to consult with one or more medical professionals who can review the medical records and the medical information that relates to your case and advise the lawyer whether it looks like there has been medical malpractice that has caused a serious injury.

Once a determination is made that there appears to be a viable case, Idaho has special rules that apply before you can proceed with filing a lawsuit, and those special rules require you to file a complaint with the Idaho Board of Medicine. The Board of Medicine conducts a review of the case. They interview the participants, both the patient and the doctor, and they generate a written report that generally comments on whether the Board of Medicine believes the case has merit or not. The findings of the Board of Medicine are not binding. In other words, if the Board of Medicine finds in your favor, that doesn’t mean you win; it doesn’t even mean that the finding of the Board of Medicine will be admissible in evidence. Likewise, if the Board of Medicine finds that your case does not have merit, that doesn’t prevent you from pursuing your case; it’s just the opinion of the Board of Medicine giving you some feedback about whether they believe you have a meritorious case. Every case in Idaho has to be submitted to the Board of Medicine for review before a lawsuit can be filed. Once the Board of Medicine has completed their review, then a lawsuit is typically filed, if it’s determined by the lawyer and the individual that that’s the next step they want to take.

Once the lawsuit is filed, a lot happens. You have to find and retain medical experts to help you prove your case. Those experts have to review the records, review depositions of the participants in the incident, and render opinions about whether there was in fact medical malpractice. The defense will do the same. They will hire experts to defend against the case. Once experts are retained by both sides, those experts’ depositions will be taken. The depositions of the parties will be taken. The depositions of the healthcare providers will be taken. There’s a lot involved with pursuing a medical malpractice case.

Once all the experts have rendered their opinions, then, in many cases, there’s an effort to explore settlement of the case before the case goes to trial. With medical malpractice cases, because of a number of considerations, many times medical malpractice cases will not resolve before trial, and then those cases go to trial. Those trials are typically jury trials, so they’re submitted to a jury to resolve the case.

The medical malpractice process from beginning to end is a complex, time-intensive, difficult process that involves a lot of cost to both sides. For all of those reasons, the medical malpractice case should involve very serious injuries to justify the expense, and the time that it will take, and the disruption of everyone’s lives that will be involved before choosing to pursue a medical malpractice case. Again, this is a complex question and usually involves a multi-faceted answer. If you have questions about medical malpractice cases, please call the Hepworth Holzer Law Firm and we’ll do our best to guide you through this process.

We receive many inquiries after people have had bad experiences with their medical care.  People who have those experiences often ask us to evaluate whether such a case is legally pursuable as medical malpractice (or misdiagnosis, or negligence).

Many Factors Go Into An Initial Evaluation Of A Potential Case

Under the law, not every bad outcome in a medical care situation rises to the level of a pursuable medical negligence claim.

For a valid claim to be pursued, the care provider must have done something wrong.  That contrasts with the provider making a medically acceptable decision in the provision of care that works out poorly.  This distinction is sometimes a hard concept to grasp.

In addition, many medical procedures have known risks that occur even when things are done properly.  Bad outcomes sometimes happen after a proper procedure is done properly.  If the bad outcome is a known complication where the provider did things the right way no legally pursuable claim exists.

That a person has a bad outcome from care, or even an injury, does not itself mean that there is a medical malpractice case.

The “Standard of Care” Is A Central Issue in Every Medical Case

Medical professionals, hospitals, and other health care facilities must abide by established “standards of care” while attending to patients.  A standard of care identifies what care choices a provider can use in providing medical services.  Providers are not held to a standard of perfection in medical care.  They are only required to make reasonable choices about what and how they deliver medical care under the specific circumstances and with the information they have in front of them about the patient.

The Idaho Legislature has adopted what is called the local standard of care.  In addition, there are dozens of cases that have gone to the Supreme Court of Idaho in disputes over the proper standard of care for patients in various cases.

The question about standard of care amounts to “was the medical care within the expected range of the way services are provided in that particular part of Idaho at that particular time.”   This can mean that the expected care for an illness or injury in Boise or Coeur d’Alene will be different than in Salmon or Sandpoint.  It can also mean that because the medical care chosen by the provider was an acceptable choice under the circumstances, even though it turned out to be ineffective or damaging, there is no claim for a bad outcome.

In many situations we see, a patient believes the care provided was insufficient or something was done wrong in delivering the care.  The first question we often ask is “who do you think did something wrong and what do you think they did wrong?”   People sometimes have a good idea about that and sometimes have no idea at all. People usually just know they did not have the expected outcome of the care.

Although it shouldn’t be, between Legislative enactments and Court decisions, determining the standard of care in Idaho cases has become a very elaborate, sophisticated, and very very expensive process.

A Hired Expert Is Required to Prove The Right Standard Of Care

An injured patient must identify a properly trained professional to state the standard of care for every case.  The witness must either be a person who delivers the same services in the same specialty in the same region (rarely happens) or a person from somewhere else with proper credentials must investigate the standard of care for the area.  This most often means they must find a local care provider who will talk to them.  That is often a difficult task.

Neither a patient nor a lawyer can offer opinions that a court will accept on a standard of care.  This is true even where it seems manifestly clear that there was violation of what should be the standard.  The law requires a properly trained medical professional of the proper specialty to offer a properly grounded opinion on the local standard of care.

So the first expert needed in any case to even figure out if it might be worth pursuing is a standard care expert.   These experts are very expensive.

Other Experts Need To Be Hired As Well

Then there is the need for a “causation” expert.  A causation expert is a medical professional who can explain why the patient’s current situation is different–and worse–than it would have been if proper care within the standard had been delivered.

Claims generally arise where a person already has an injury or illness that is being treated.  That’s why the patient is in the medical system.  There is no claim to recover damages for that preexisting problem.  A claim is only for the worsening of a problem by improper care or new problems created by improper care.

Medical Experts Are Extremely Expensive

People who have the training and are willing to work in a litigation setting charge many thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars to evaluate and offer opinions on cases.   Those costs are incurred even if the hired expert concludes that the health care provider did not violate the standard of care. Or if they conclude that although the provider did not do things right, it did not cause any more harm to the patient.

On top of those experts, medical negligence cases often need economic damages experts to evaluate other losses such as lost wages and additional future medical expenses.

Cases Have Other Costs Along With The Costs of Experts

As a claimant in a medical negligence case, along with incurring the costs of expert witnesses any costs of medical care that are needed that were caused by the bad medical care must be paid back to the health insurance or whoever paid for the care.  And on top of that of course there are the costs of having an attorney involved.

As a matter of economic reality damages must almost always be large and ongoing and the injury must create functional limitations for the victim to have a claim with a serious chance of being pursued in the legal system.  Even for those that are pursued to court, injured people prevail in only a small fraction of them.  Juries most often rule for the medical professional not the injured person.  As noted above, many cases are then appealed to the Supreme Court.  All of this takes time money and energy. Thus, every lawyer who does bad medical care cases must evaluate them carefully and continually.

Damages Must Be Substantial For a Claim to Involve a Lawyer

People often suffer real, but short-lived, or real, but non-serious injuries, from bad medical care.  Our view is that those situations often cannot be pursued in the legal system in any economically reasonable manner.

Even if damages are recovered, the injured person has to generally pay back their health insurance for any care needed because of the medical negligence.  In addition, of course, out of any recovery the injured patient has to pay for the legal representation.

The costs of the experts plus the time and energy needed to pursue a medical negligence case to resolution often outweigh the recoverable damages.

Usually there must be substantial life altering long-term injuries for a claim to be viable as a medical negligence lawsuit.  Most of the time, a claim for $50, $100, or even $250 thousand dollars in damages is likely too small for an attorney to assist and pursue in the legal system and provide the injured patient any real benefit.

There are times where, in what are situation of obvious error with smaller damages, that the providers will work with an injured patient directly where that error causes a minor injury.  These are cases in which we can only infrequently provide substantial help.  We can sometimes give advice on how to proceed on your own.

The Statute of Limitations

You need to know that the general rule is that medical negligence claims must be filed within 2 years of the day the negligence occurred.  There are a variety of times when some exceptions apply such as for children, wrongful death claims, some cancer misdiagnosis, or other claims where there is no damage to the patient at the moment the error occurred.  In some cases, identifying the statute of limitations can be difficult.   Before a lawsuit is filed there are administrative proceedings called pre-litigation screening in front of the Board of Medicine for claims against doctors and hospitals and some others.

 “Consumer Complaint” Options

A person can always file a complaint with the facility or institution where the care was provided.  These complaints are usually reviewed and responded to by “risk management” staff.   They most often don’t offer much, if any, assistance to victims. But such a complaint can result in an investigation and the care provider receiving additional training. As the injured patient you might infrequently get a bill payment waived or even in rare cases a small payment in compensation.

You can also file for prelitigation screening without an attorney.  The form is available at the Idaho State Board of Medicine website.  This will result in an informal hearing where a Panel will determine whether the standard of care at issue was violated.  Your care provider must participate in this process.  This process also must be undertaken before any lawsuit can be pursued.

Unfortunately, as you may have figured out by reading this explainer, many people who have negative outcomes from medical care find out that the legal system offers little or no help.  Our lawyers talk to many people every year about bad medical care but can only take a few cases based on the above issues and other matters.

The question is, can you settle your medical malpractice case without going to court? The answer is that you’ll need an experienced lawyer who has substantial experience with handling medical malpractice cases to do that. An overwhelming majority of the time, you’ll have to file a lawsuit to pursue your medical malpractice case. The question was whether you’ll have to go to court, so my interpretation of the term “going to court” is do I have to file a lawsuit, and the answer to that is there’s a strong likelihood that you will have to file a lawsuit as part of pursuing your case.

Not all medical malpractice cases where lawsuits are filed actually end up going to trial. There are a significant percentage of medical malpractice cases that are filed that do end up going to trial, but not all. Will there be an opportunity to settle the case before going to trial? In most cases, you will have an opportunity to explore settlement. Ultimately, the decision of whether to settle your case or not rests with you, the client, with the benefit of the advice from your lawyer, but it’s not necessary to go to trial in all cases in order to get a satisfying result.

These are complex questions that involve in depth answers and you’ll need very, very experienced and competent representation if you are pursuing a medical malpractice case. At Hepworth Holzer we have a long history of handling medical malpractice cases, and we would love the opportunity to visit with you about your situation and give you the best advice we can.