At least three times this week, I have described what I do as analogous to a hammer. If your problem looks like a nail, my skills and experience can be helpful. But not every healthcare crisis, emergency, or negligent care situation can be helped by a lawsuit. Not every harmful interaction with a health care provider requires a hammer in response.
So when our office decides whether your need and our skills align, we like to start by asking clients the following:
Why did you call a lawyer? What are you hoping we can do for you?
The answers are as varied and unique as the people providing them, but often we hear:
– I want answers
– I don’t want this to happen to someone else
– I want accountability
– I want my bills paid for
– I want an explanation as to what happened
– I want this doctor / nursing home / to change how they practice
And what we often share, is that a lawsuit is quite limited in what it can actually do.
Lawsuits can’t provide every solution
| What a successful Lawsuit will do | What a lawsuit won’t do | What sometimes happens |
| Make the provider explain what happened | Take Provider’s License away | Doctor feels remorse and regret |
| Require the provider to think about your care, and case for a year or more | Prevent provider from practicing in the area | Provider asks Doctor to leave after a number of claims |
| Cause the provider to think again when they see similar condition in another patient | Prevent the provider from being named “Top Doc” by local magazine | Provider refuses to promote doctor |
| Make provider’s insurance costs go up | Prevent the provider from performing same procedure on future patients | Provider asks doctor to stop performing Z procedure |
| Require insurance company to pay you money for your injuries | Require the doctor to tell future patients about your injury, or the lawsuit | New policies are created to help prevent repeat negligence |
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| Make the doctor apologize | Doctor gets better |
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| Ensure local press covers the lawsuit or injuries |
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If your goal is therefore to get the Doctor’s license taken away, or make sure he or she is fired – a lawsuit can never achieve those goals.
If your goal however, is answers, and accountability – a lawsuit may achieve those goals.
Sadly, we are also limited in what a lawsuit can do for your financially.
Virginia law limits what you can recover
Virginia law caps what a victim or her family can ask for and get in a medical malpractice claim. Even if the victim has $20,000,000 in actual lost wages, bills and medical needs – the system only allows victims to get between $2 – $3million depending on when the bad care happened.
So a lawsuit cannot FULLY compensate many victims of medical malpractice.
Lastly, a lawsuit cannot and will not, take your pain, grief or worry away.
Lawsuit can’t take your pain away
One universal truth about life, is that grief and pain can and often change who we are. A health care crisis can and will often change a person emotionally as well as physically.
Losing a loved one due to death, or because a trauma has transformed who they are is painful, awful and sometimes unbearable life event.
A lawsuit cannot begin to undo this kind of damage and we often recommend our clients (victims of medical negligence in Virginia) seek counseling from a pastor or licensed therapist, and speak to their doctors about the pain – in addition to filing the lawsuit.
In sum – if you believe you have been provide substandard care in Virginia, and don’t know whether you have a case – call us.
If you don’t have a case we will do our best to point you to the additional resources that can help you achieve your goals.
And if you do have a case, we will do everything we can to help you through this often long and difficult journey.
Lauren Ellerman