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Our Prac­tice Areas : Mal­prac­tice Law : Medical

Wel­come to the Ziff Law Firm, LLP Med­ical Mal­prac­tice web­page. We are a team of legal pro­fes­sionals that has pro­vided skilled, aggres­sive and eth­ical legal ser­vices to res­i­dents of New York and Penn­syl­vania for more than 50 years. Our 10 lawyers permit us to offer a full-range of legal ser­vices, including expe­ri­ence in med­ical mal­prac­tice cases. We have a proven track record of achieving great results on behalf of our clients.

Are you are one of the many who has been injured, mis­di­ag­nosed, suf­fered phys­ical or emo­tional dis­tress, or have lost a loved one because of a med­ical mis­take? Ziff Law Firm has pro­vided this page to help inform you of your rights and the legal recourse that may be avail­able to you. We feel that infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion can help injured vic­tims take action against those who have dam­aged their lives.

“First of All, to Do No Harm…”?
It is common knowl­edge that when physi­cians enter the med­ical pro­fes­sion, they take an oath that in part promises to “never inten­tion­ally do harm”. Unfor­tu­nately, some doc­tors do cause harm through their mis­takes, igno­rance, neg­li­gence, lack of skill and mis­di­ag­nosis. Med­ical mal­prac­tice is the result of a health care provider’s failure to pro­vide the expected stan­dard of care.

The med­ical pro­fes­sion brings health and hope to mil­lions of Amer­i­cans every day; how­ever far too many are injured or killed due to med­ical mis­takes. In November 1999, the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine (IOM) released a report esti­mating that as many as 98,000 patients die each year as a result of med­ical errors in hos­pi­tals. Com­pound this number with the unre­ported mis­takes made in other health­care set­tings (physi­cians’ offices, urgent care cen­ters, nursing homes, phar­ma­cies and home care) and the mag­ni­tude of med­ical mal­prac­tice becomes stag­gering. In addi­tion to the high-costs of med­ical mis­takes in terms of lives and quality of life, our nation pays an esti­mated $17 bil­lion per year in costs due to pre­ventable errors.

In legal terms, health­care pro­fes­sionals are only required to give a stan­dard of care that is ordi­nary or normal. When a physi­cian is deter­mined to be neg­li­gent, it means that he or she has failed to use the same degree of skill and learning, under the same or sim­ilar cir­cum­stances, that are used by other mem­bers of the med­ical pro­fes­sion. Some of the most common ways that med­ical mal­prac­tice occurs is through failure or errors in timely diag­nosis and ordering appro­priate treat­ment, ordering nec­es­sary tests and proper med­ica­tion, con­sulting with spe­cial­ists and sur­gical procedures.

The Harm That is Done
Med­i­cine is a com­pli­cated and varied field, so it is impos­sible to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive list all of the types of mal­prac­tice claims. How­ever, the leading types of mal­prac­tice claims include:

• Wrongful death
• Birth defects or injuries
• Hos­pital, physi­cian, and nursing negligence
• Mis­di­ag­nosis
• Nursing home injuries and elder abuse
• Phar­ma­ceu­tical errors

Resti­tu­tion for Harm
If your attorney is able to prove your med­ical mal­prac­tice case and the med­ical provider is found neg­li­gent, then you are enti­tled to recover “dam­ages.”? Dam­ages are intended to help you return to the con­di­tion you were in prior to the injury. There are sev­eral forms of dam­ages that you may recover in a med­ical mal­prac­tice award — eco­nomic (for lost wages or med­ical expenses), non-economic (for pain and suf­fering), or puni­tive (to punish reck­less behavior) dam­ages. You may also receive com­pen­sa­tion for future med­ical expenses and loss of future earn­ings. Puni­tive dam­ages occur only in rare cases when it is proved that the med­ical prac­ti­tioner had mali­cious intent. Med­ical mal­prac­tice claims are one of the most dif­fi­cult areas of lit­i­ga­tion, since the neg­li­gent action must be doc­u­mented and proven within spe­cific guide­lines. Only a skilled med­ical mal­prac­tice attorney has the expe­ri­ence and resources to thor­oughly inves­ti­gate and val­i­date your case. The expert med­ical lit­i­ga­tion attor­neys of Ziff Law Firm can help pre­pare your med­ical per­sonal injury claim, wrongful death suit and any other law­suit where a health­care prac­ti­tioner may have caused you harm.

Is Lit­i­ga­tion Fair?
It is impor­tant to remember that your per­sonal feel­ings towards your doctor are not at issue in a mal­prac­tice action. The facts deter­mine whether your physi­cian was neg­li­gent. If neg­li­gence is proven, then you are enti­tled to receive fair com­pen­sa­tion to help restore your life, and to help pre­vent others from suf­fering a sim­ilar fate. If the facts do prove that your case received sat­is­fac­tory med­ical care, you may take com­fort in the fact that the med­ical com­mu­nity acted in your best inter­ests and this knowl­edge can help you move for­ward in recovery.

We know you may hes­i­tate to pursue your case out of con­cern about lit­i­ga­tion and its effect on rising med­ical costs. Hope­fully, you will take solace in the fact that that while med­ical costs have increased by 113% since 1987, the amount spent by the health­care industry on med­ical mal­prac­tice insur­ance has only increased by 52% over the same period of time. According to the director of insur­ance for the Con­sumer Fed­er­a­tion of America, insur­ance com­pa­nies are raising rates because of poor returns on their invest­ments, not because of lit­i­ga­tion and justice.

If you sus­pect that you are a victim of mal­prac­tice, time is of the essence. Con­sult one of our med­ical mal­prac­tice lawyers imme­di­ately to dis­cuss your case and make an impor­tant step in taking con­trol of your sit­u­a­tion. At Ziff Law Firm, LLP, we rec­og­nize the deep trust placed in us by our clients, and we strive to uphold that trust by working hard and fighting hard for our clients. We do the best we pos­sibly can for every client on every case.

Our skilled team of lawyers knows the law, the legal process and victim’s rights. We can help you make informed deci­sions, so please call Ziff Law Firm, LLP at 1−800−806−2852, or save time with our online Con­tact Form.

Please see our Med­ical Mapl­prac­tice Glos­sary for def­i­n­i­tions of med­ical mal­prac­tice terms.

Please see our Med­ical Mal­prac­tice Fre­quently Asked Ques­tions for more infor­ma­tion on Med­ical Malpractice.

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