A heart attack is one of the most serious health conditions a person can experience. When doctors fail to recognize the warning signs of a heart attack or delay appropriate care, a patient can suffer severe or fatal harm. If a healthcare provider failed to properly diagnose your heart attack, you may have a medical malpractice claim.
A Las Cruces misdiagnosis lawyer at Coates & Johnson can help you seek compensation for your medical expenses and emotional suffering. We have over 60 years of experience in the medical malpractice field. Contact us today in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to schedule a free consultation and discuss your potential case.
Why Patients Across New Mexico Turn to Coates & Johnson
Failure-to-diagnose heart attack claims require experienced representation to show that the condition was avoidable with prompt detection and treatment. Coates & Johnson can help you prove your claim and recover full compensation for your injuries.
We stand apart in Las Cruces, NM, because:
- Our practice is limited to medical malpractice cases only.
- We have handled thousands of failure-to-diagnose claims and other medical malpractice claims.
- Our team is respected for its leadership in medical malpractice law and includes a lawyer who is also a physician.
- We have the resources to go up against the largest healthcare facilities.
- We handle all medical malpractice cases on a contingency fee basis.
If you suspect that a healthcare provider failed to properly diagnose your heart attack, Coates & Johnson can help you evaluate your legal options. Contact our office today to speak with a Las Cruces medical malpractice attorney about your case.
How a Medical Malpractice Lawyer Can Help With a Missed Heart Attack Diagnosis
Heart attack malpractice cases can be difficult to prove. Symptoms can vary between patients, and healthcare providers may argue that the condition was not obvious at the time of treatment.
To establish a malpractice claim, you must show that a healthcare provider failed to follow accepted medical standards and delayed treatment that would have prevented a heart attack. An experienced medical malpractice attorney can help with your claim by:
- Reviewing emergency room records, cardiac testing, and medical documentation
- Consulting qualified medical experts to reconstruct your treatment and evaluate deficiencies
- Identifying all negligent providers who failed to provide proper treatment
- Complying with all pre-suit requirements for filing a failure to diagnose claim
- Calculating the losses you experienced as a result of the heart attack
An attorney can help gather compelling evidence — including testimony from leading experts — and demonstrate how negligent care contributed to the injury.
When a Heart Attack Is Not Recognized in Time
Not every delayed diagnosis automatically constitutes medical malpractice. However, a failure to diagnose a heart attack occurs when a healthcare provider fails to recognize warning signs or fails to order appropriate testing that would have revealed the condition.
However, heart attacks require immediate treatment to restore blood flow to the heart. Even short delays can significantly increase the amount of damage to the heart muscle and worsen a patient’s prognosis.
Common symptoms that may indicate a heart attack include:
- Chest pain or pressure
- Pain spreading to the arm, jaw, neck, or back
- Shortness of breath
- Nausea or vomiting
- Unexplained sweating or dizziness
- Fatigue or weakness
Delayed diagnosis can lead to permanent heart injury, long-term health complications, or death. If you suffered a heart attack due to a delayed diagnosis, you could be entitled to substantial compensation from the doctors, nurses, and other staff involved in your care. A medical malpractice claim allows you to seek compensation from these parties to cover your current and future medical expenses, lost income, and pain and suffering (to name a few).
What Can Happen When a Heart Attack Goes Undiagnosed?
Heart attacks are among the most commonly misdiagnosed conditions in medicine. Symptoms are frequently dismissed or attributed to less serious causes such as acid reflux, anxiety, or chronic pain. When that happens, patients lose an important window for diagnosis and treatment.
The injuries that result from a missed or delayed heart attack diagnosis include:
- Permanent damage to the heart muscle, reducing its ability to pump blood effectively
- Heart failure requiring lifelong medication and management
- Arrhythmias/irregular heart rhythms
- Cardiogenic shock
- Pericarditis and other inflammatory complications
- Increased risk of a second heart attack
- Stroke resulting from clots
- Death
Many of these outcomes are preventable with early intervention. Most are consequences of a heart attack that went unrecognized and untreated for too long.
How to Prove a Heart Attack Misdiagnosis Case
Establishing liability in a heart attack misdiagnosis case requires four elements and supporting each with appropriate evidence.
- Duty. A provider has a provider-patient relationship and duty of care once they begin evaluating a patient.
- Breach. This element requires showing that the provider failed to meet the standard of care for the situation. For example, a provider may have declined to order an ECG in a timely manner, failed to obtain serial troponin levels, dismissed cardiac symptoms, or discharged a patient without appropriate follow-up instructions. Expert testimony from a board-certified cardiologist or emergency medicine physician is typically required to define the standard of care and identify breaches.
- Causation. This element requires demonstrating that the failure to diagnose allowed the patient’s cardiac injury to progress. This often involves comparing myocardial damage against what would have been expected had treatment been provided within the appropriate window.
- Damages. A patient must show they suffered damages. In these cases, damages often include substantial past and future medical expenses, lost income, reduced quality of life, among other things.
An experienced attorney can evaluate your case and provide a preliminary opinion about whether your claim meets the elements of medical negligence.
Who Is Generally Liable for a Failure to Diagnose a Heart Condition?
Under New Mexico law, liability in a heart attack misdiagnosis case often extends to multiple providers.
The emergency room physician who evaluated the patient is the most common defendant. If that physician failed to order appropriate testing, misinterpreted results, or discharged the patient without adequate evaluation, they may have deviated from the standard of care.
Nurses and other clinical staff who documented or triaged the patient may also share liability if they failed to escalate concerns appropriately.
Hospitals and health systems can face liability if inadequate staffing, lack of cardiac protocols, or equipment failures contributed to a misdiagnosis. When a hospital employs the treating physicians and nurses directly, it may also be vicariously liable for their negligence.
Other parties that could be liable include:
- Cardiologists or internists
- Primary care providers who missed warning signs during earlier visits
- Radiologists who misread imaging findings
Identifying the full scope of liability requires extensive investigation into your medical care and consultation with medical specialists who can help assess whether medical negligence occurred.
Contact a Las Cruces Failure to Diagnose a Heart Attack Lawyer
A missed heart attack diagnosis can permanently change a person’s health and quality of life. When healthcare providers fail to recognize the signs of a heart attack and provide timely care, they should be held to account.
If you believe negligent medical care delayed the diagnosis of a heart attack, Coates & Johnson can help you find answers. Contact our medical malpractice attorney in Las Cruces today to schedule a free consultation with a Las Cruces failure to diagnose a heart attack lawyer and learn more about your legal rights.