Suing Your Chiropractor for Malpractice: Do You Have a Legitimate Claim?

Blog

If you sought out treatment from a chiropractor for a back, neck, or sports injury but your condition did not improve or got worse, your chiropractor could be liable for damages under the context of medical malpractice. However, certain conditions must exist in order for a malpractice case to stand up in court. If you decide to file civil suit against your chiropractor, here is how you can tell if your case has merit.

Why can it be hard to prove a chiropractic malpractice case?

Medical malpractice occurs when professionally trained care providers make mistakes that should have been or could have been preventable. Sometimes medical professionals are too tired to preform a procedure, do not follow protocol, or do not take an accurate patient history, and these can all result in injury to the patient. Chiropractics is a alternative branch of medicine, so it makes medical malpractice more difficult to prove simply because alternative medicinal treatments may not be effective for your particular injury or may be experimental in nature. Patients assume the risk of opting for this type of care. For example, if a patient suffers from chronic migraines, seeing a chiropractor may help. But if the migraines get worse or do not change, it can be hard to pin this problem on chiropractic care, simply because migraines have many different triggers and affect individuals differently. Causal evidence is not enough. 

What will you need to help your case stand up in court?

Therefore, in order to prove medical malpractice exists for your case, it should meet three criteria:

1. You established a patient/caregiver relationship with your chiropractor. This means you were seen several times and the chiropractor had a working knowledge of your medical history and the medications you were taking. Proving the relationship helps to show that if treatment caused adverse effects, a professional should have noticed over the course of care.
2. You can prove below-standard care. Usually, this means that you will need second and third opinions from other chiropractors of similar experience. Their testimony against your chiropractor will help to show that he or she used outdated treatment methods or cut corners in order to save expense or time. 
3. Your injury is result of the below-standard procedures your chiropractor used. For example, if you visit your chiropractor for help rehabilitating severe whiplash after a car accident and the injury is made worse during a procedure, you have a case against him or her. Proving injury due to care is easier if you document your injury right when it occurs in a journal or diary. It also helps if someone else close to you can testify that your problems started or were made worse when you sought out chiropractic care. 

For further information and advice, contact a personal injury attorney like John J Bublewicz Attorney At Law.

28 October 2015