Hospital Malpractice
The Law Offices of Steven L. Martin handles cases involving a wide range of medical malpractice committed on patients throughout Los Angeles and Southern California, including cases where the hospital or healthcare facility itself is to blame for causing a serious personal injury or wrongful death.
Hospitals and Medical Malpractice Law
As employers, hospitals can be held liable for the negligent acts of their employees. If a nurse administers the wrong medicine, if a lab tech misreads a diagnostic test, or if the wrong baby is sent home with a pair of unsuspecting new parents, the hospital may be liable for the damages caused. Hospitals in theory have policies, procedures and protocols in place to make sure events like these don’t happen, but they do. In fact, they happen often enough that hospitals have a name for these events and track them statistically. They call them “sentinel events,” meaning that the occurrence of one should serve as a signal to guard against other similar events. They also call them “never events,” expressing the ideal that they should never happen, but obviously they do.
The liability of a hospital can be a complicated question. For instance, if a doctor or surgeon committed malpractice at the hospital, a question often arises whether the doctor was actually an employee of the hospital or merely had “privileges” to practice there. Many doctors form physician groups, and those groups maintain contracts with the hospitals, further clouding the issue.
HMO Liability
Millions of Californians have their access to healthcare managed by a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). HMOs are often the only affordable option for individuals and families, and may be the only option for employer-sponsored health insurance. HMOs are great at cost-containment, but some might argue that they do so at the expense of quality patient care. If your HMO decided that you did not need a particular test or course of treatment because it was too expensive, but you suffered because you did not receive the care you needed, you may have a claim against the HMO for the damages they caused.
At the Law Offices of Steven L. Martin, we work to identify all the parties responsible for your injuries and dedicate ourselves to achieving the best possible result in compensation for you. If you or a loved one were injured by negligent or irresponsible conduct in a hospital, surgery center, outpatient facility or other health care facility in Southern California, contact the Law Offices of Steven L. Martin for a free consultation.