The road to a diagnosis can be long and winding, sometimes with wrong turns and dead ends. A diagnosis isn’t just a label for a condition or disease; it’s a crucial component of a person’s treatment plan, interventions, and overall outcomes. It can mean the difference between life and death. A delayed, missed, or wrong diagnosis can have disastrous effects on a person’s physical, mental, and financial well-being. But when does a delayed diagnosis become medical negligence and/or malpractice?

How Does a Diagnosis Work?

Diagnosis, in the field of healthcare, can be a bit of a mystery. Physicians use a combination of medical history, symptoms, physical exams, laboratory testing, and diagnostic imaging. However, despite advances in medical technology and artificial intelligence, there remains an element of intuition, or “gut feeling,” in the diagnostic process. This can open the door to subjectivity and error.

Can a Delayed Diagnosis Be Deemed Negligence?

A diagnosis can be complicated, and not all diagnostic errors are the result of medical negligence. Medical negligence can be defined as when a healthcare professional fails to meet a standard of care. A delayed diagnosis may be considered negligent if the healthcare professional’s failure to meet the standard of care directly causes the delay.

Misdiagnosis vs Delayed Diagnosis

These two terms are sometimes used interchangeably; however, they have distinct meanings. The former can sometimes be confused with medical negligence. However, to be clear, a delayed diagnosis happens when the correct diagnosis is made but is not given until later, sometimes by weeks, months, or even years. During that time, the patient may have experienced worsening symptoms, disease progression, and complications. A misdiagnosis is when a person is given a diagnosis that they do not have.

The Causes

Delayed diagnosis can be caused by many different factors, some more clear-cut than others. Some of these include:

Communication Errors

Communication is one of the most common causes of medical error in general. A lack of communication between a patient and healthcare professional, between providers, or in test results or prior medical history can leave vital clues undiscovered.

Systems Failures

System errors and failures can also contribute to delays in diagnosis. A lack of resources for health systems, under-resourced or overworked staff, and patient overcrowding or backlogs can result in delays of days, weeks, or even months.

Human Error

Physicians are not infallible, and sometimes simple human error can lead to diagnostic mistakes. Cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias (when a doctor only sees information that confirms their theory and disregards anything that contradicts it) and anchoring bias (when a doctor clings to a first impression and is slow to change it when presented with new information), can affect how they process information and draw conclusions.

Missed or Skipped Testing

Insufficient testing occurs when a doctor fails to order a test, skips a test, misinterprets the patient’s symptoms, misinterprets the test results, or dismisses the results. This is also sometimes referred to as “disappearing test syndrome.”

Are All Diagnosis Delays Acts of Negligence?

Not all delayed diagnoses are medical negligence. To prove medical negligence, three elements are typically required:

Standard of Care

Medical negligence requires evidence that the healthcare professional failed to meet the expected standards of care, as someone practicing in their field would have done. The “standard of care” for ordering a test or referring a patient might be fairly obvious, but for other diagnostic decisions, it can be much less clear.

Direct Causation

The direct impact of the delayed diagnosis on the patient’s health condition must be evidenced. Harm is typically proven through the progression of the disease, the development of complications, or a lower likelihood of successful treatment or recovery.

Actual Damages

Actual damages to the patient also need to be provided to claim medical negligence, including physical, emotional, and financial suffering.

The Emotional Aspect

Of course, it’s not all just black and white. For a patient and their family, a delayed diagnosis can be emotionally traumatic. For a physician or healthcare professional, the guilt of missing or delaying a diagnosis can also take its toll. In some cases, medical negligence can be intentional or malicious; however, in most cases, the healthcare professional did the best they could given their available resources.

Patient advocacy and second opinions are essential tools that can help reduce diagnostic delays and errors. Physicians should also know when to order a second opinion or refer a patient to a colleague. Education and training can help to raise awareness of the causes of medical errors and reduce the potential for human error.

Legal Issues Related to a Delayed Diagnosis

The legalities surrounding a delayed diagnosis can depend on where the incident occurred, whether the professional is licensed to practice in that area, their level of experience, and other relevant factors. In some cases, a medical malpractice or negligence lawsuit might be filed. In many healthcare systems, it is also possible to file an official complaint about a healthcare professional.

A West Virginia Medical Malpractice Attorney Can Help

Delayed diagnosis is a serious issue with potentially life-threatening consequences, especially in the case of delayed heart attack and stroke diagnoses. On the one hand, medicine is not a perfect science, and healthcare providers are humans first; but on the other hand, people’s lives are on the line.

Learning how to recognize the difference between medical negligence and an honest mistake is not always easy. For healthcare professionals, knowing when and how to provide second opinions, referrals, and recommended lab testing and imaging can be the difference between life and death for a patient. For patients, recognizing that they have a right to a second opinion can be crucial in some cases. Contact our office to speak to a well-versed medical malpractice attorney who can further explain your rights and options under the law.