{"id":1082,"date":"2021-07-21T14:25:21","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T14:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/screening-the-case\/"},"modified":"2021-08-23T18:42:35","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T18:42:35","slug":"screening-the-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/screening-the-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Screening the case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Screening the case is the process by which an experienced medical malpractice attorney will go through to determine whether there is a likelihood of successfully proving that medical malpractice occurred to the patient which caused the patient substantial damages.&nbsp; There are many factors that go in to the screening process. Documenting the events, reviewing the medical records, retaining a physician expert opinion on the medical record contents, and determining damages.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Remember, the patient or plaintiff has the burden of proof in a medical malpractice law suit to prove the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What was the standard of care applicable to the care of the patient;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That the defendant physician breached that standard of care;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That the breach of the standard of care caused damages to the patient;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The nature, extent and amount of damage caused by the medical malpractice<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proof of these items generally comes from the medical records and witness testimony.&nbsp; The most important testimony is the expert testimony that comes from the physicians, including the defendant doctor.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An experienced medical malpractice attorney who has tried these cases understands how these cases have to be proved in order for the best chance of success with a judge or jury.&nbsp; He is aware of the evidentiary problems that comes with presenting this type of evidence as well as the practical issues of getting the witnesses to trial.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Given the fact that two-thirds of all medical malpractice cases that were tried in the U.S. last year were won by the healthcare provider, the evaluation of these cases must be rigorous and thorough.&nbsp; Knowing that malpractice occurred and proving it are two very different concepts.&nbsp; If the medical records and\/or testifying experts do not demonstrate the malpractice in a very convincing matter, the case will be lost.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is no secret that most judges and juries give the benefit of the doubt in a close case to the healthcare provider.&nbsp; That is why the proof in these cases must be overwhelming in order to have a chance of success.&nbsp; Sometimes, it can be extremely frustrating to the patient or his family and the attorney reviewing the case when the documents and\/or testimony do not support what we all know really happened in the case.&nbsp; Remember though, if the evidence results in a tie, the plaintiff loses the case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The law requires that the plaintiff prove all of the above bullet points by a preponderance of the evidence.&nbsp; This means that a fact is 50.1% more likely than not.&nbsp; If a judge or jury believes that the fact is only 50\/50 one way or the other, it is not deemed to be proven.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Screening of medical malpractice cases can be time-consuming and expensive.&nbsp; Experts usually review these cases in their spare time when they are not attending to patients.&nbsp; Thus, they do not quickly provide the opinions to the attorney.&nbsp; They also charge huge sums of money to review the voluminous documents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the screening process can be complicated and expensive, it is absolutely necessary to ensure the best chance of success in the case.&nbsp; It would be a disaster for the family to have a lawyer take on a medical malpractice case that was not thoroughly screened and have the case thrown out of court and the family hit for all the costs of defense.&nbsp; This would make an already bad situation financially worse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most medical malpractice lawyers only take a small percentage of the total number of potential cases that are screened.&nbsp; As stated above, this is usually due to the fact that the evidence does not prove a case by a preponderance of the evidence.&nbsp; However, even if the lawyer accepts the case, it does not by any sense mean that he is guaranteeing success.&nbsp; There are too many potential issues that can arise between discovery and trial that can quickly derail the case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do not be afraid to ask any lawyer that wants to review your case about his screening process.&nbsp; While it may seem good in the beginning that he decides to take the case, a loss could place huge financial burdens on the family.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Screening the case is the process by which an experienced medical malpractice attorney will go through to determine whether there is a likelihood of successfully proving that medical malpractice occurred to the patient which caused the patient substantial damages.&nbsp; There are many factors that go in to the screening process. Documenting the events, reviewing the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-med-mal-cases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2265,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/2265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cochranfirm.com\/new-orleans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}