Skip to main content

The California Medical Malpractice Case Practice and Its Policy



Medical negligence is usually referred to as medical malpractice and it typically occurs when the provider of such medical care violates governing standards for treatment when causes a patient to suffer injuries. California medical malpractice case policy is like other medical malpractice policies practiced nationwide, and limits punitive damages to $250,000 in most cases.

Medical malpractice can result from a particular action taken by medical personnel or the failure to take the right action; such medical malpractice actions can be taken up by the injured patient against the medical provider including doctor, counselor, psychologists and psychotherapists.

Here are a few examples of medical malpractice cases: misdiagnosis of or failure to diagnose a medical condition; providing the wrong treatment for the medical condition in cause; and unreasonable delay in treating a diagnosed medical condition. Some general rules and regulation applied to medical malpractice are discussed below.

Collateral Source Rule

Under a typical collateral source rule a defendant may not seek to reduce liability by introducing evidence that the plaintiff has received compensation from other sources such as the plaintiff's own insurance coverage. In a California medical malpractice case the court's policy is that a discretionally offset amount is determined for such payments and this evidence can be introduced at a trial.

Joint and Several Liability

The traditional rule of joint and multiple liability when more than one defendant is found liable for the injury suffered by a plaintiff is that each individual will be separately liable for the entire amount of the judgment. Under California medical malpractice case policy which involves non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, the proportional fault of each defendant is therefore established and each one is liable only for the amount of any such damages that they are proportionally responsible for causing.

Upon a party's request there is a mandatory periodic payment of future damages awards in excess of $50,000; should the plaintiff pass away before all payments have been made the judgment may be modified by the court, although payments continue to the parties to whom the plaintiff owed a duty of support.

Additional Rules

California medical malpractice case policy also permits and enforces contracts for arbitration of malpractice claims. A doctor must be given 90 days notice of the intent to file suit before the medical malpractice adjudication can begin.

Due to the complexity of medical malpractice policies you're advised to hire an experienced lawyer should you ever be faced with having to go through such a lawsuit. Take care selecting witnesses as well -- expert witnesses used at medical malpractice trials must be educated in the specific field in order to be able to evaluate the specifics of the case and its claims and have the testimony be allowed into the court record.

Popular posts from this blog

Medical Billing Careers

Medical billing careers are among the top contenders of the recent job explosion in the healthcare industry. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that it is one of the top twenty occupations in healthcare. Medical billing careers are pivotal to the success of the medical practice. It is often referred to as the doctor's key to getting paid for the services he rendered. Medical billing careers encompass a wide scope and a broad range of responsibilities as it includes front office tasks, among others, in its list of things to do. Nature of Work Success in medical billing careers is not as easy as it is often made out to be by those ads you see in the classified section of the local newspaper or the Internet. Not everyone who enters into one end up rich. Competition is fierce and in the end, the competent ones are the only ones who survive. To achieve some measure of success in medical billing careers, you will need to know all the basic concepts related to the jo...
Read more

Facing Confidentiality and Electronic Medical Records Concerns

With more and more hospitals employing the electronic medical record as their standard data collection, storage and retrieval system, there are those who are concerned with the risks in the confidentiality and electronic medical records system. The old way of doing things required a lot of paperwork. This meant more office space was allotted for record keeping. This usually meant a filing cabinet with a key as its main security defense against other people. The talk of confidentiality and electronic medical records keeping true to that sense is only a hype, or fluke. The concerns of confidentiality and electronic medical records falling into the wrong hands are grossly exaggerated. To put these concerns on confidentiality and electronic medical records intrusive capability, the software developers have added several security measures to insure that only those who need to know about your information get it and the information that the doctor is reading is really about you: * ...
Read more

Medical Billing Career

People in the world today are not getting any younger. As they age, the need for working professionals in the medical and healthcare services professions will continue to increase. That is why there is no more right time to get into a medical billing career than now. The sheer number of new patients and insurance claims alone ensure that medical billing career will be in-demand for many years to come. If you pursue a medical billing career, there is no doubt that you are pursuing a career that is greatly needed. Medical billing has been frequently described as the doctor's key to getting paid. In more accurate description, medical billing refers to practice management. More often than not, processing medical and insurance claims is a very time-consuming task but unfortunately, it is something that all medical offices and clinics must take up. Coding errors and erroneous patient information are usually much higher if the person handling your medical billing and accounts pa...
Read more