Nerve scarring is a common after-effect of surgery. If, after a few months of your surgery, you still feel pain, numbness in your limbs, or a needle-like sensation in your feet or palms, then you’ve incurred serious nerve damage during the surgery.
In that case, you can file a claim and seek compensation. But before claiming compensation for nerve damage after surgery, you need to prepare your facts.
What facts do you require to prove your claim? How do you go about the process? How much compensation can you get? We’ll explore everything here. But first, let’s talk about what a typical compensation for nerve damage can cover.
What Can Compensation for Nerve Damage Cover?
Beyond initial symptoms of discomfort and pain, nerve damage can have long-term effects, such as loss of coordination, inability to drive, difficulty speaking, loss of urinal control, difficulty walking, or even permanent limb paralysis. The United States medical law doesn’t take this lightly; anyone who experiences disabling nerve damage has grounds to pursue a medical malpractice claim.
A successful suit provides patients with compensation that can help them get back on track, adapt to a new lifestyle, pay for ongoing treatment, and cover future loss of earnings. However, before you file for compensation for nerve damage after surgery, you must be able to prove the medical negligence of the healthcare provider.
When Does Nerve Damage Constitute Medical Malpractice?
You will often hear that nerve damage after surgery is normal. This is not false, as doctors often operate close to nerves during surgery. Sometimes, a nerve may be affected in the process. But in a situation where the nerve damage was avoidable and caused by negligence, you have a good medical malpractice case to make.
Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare professional deviates from medical standard care, leading to injury to a patient. A range of negligence could arise in surgery, whether during the pre-surgery process, during the surgery, or after the surgery.
For example, not positioning a patient well during surgery can cause undue strain on nerves, potentially leading to long-term nerve damage.
Additionally, suppose the damage was unavoidable, but you were not informed about a potential risk of nerve damage with evidence of a signed form before the surgery. In that case, you also have the right to make a case. A situation like this shows the medical professional didn’t carry out adequate risk analysis and forms a strong ground for negligence.
Now, a question we must address is how long you have to report and file a claim for negligence. For one, not all nerve damage issues manifest immediately. While inflammation-based forms of peripheral nerve injuries may manifest rapidly within days or weeks, some other conditions take months, years, or even decades to develop.
In a situation where you didn’t discover the injury sooner, you have up to five years from the date of the surgery to file a lawsuit, according to the Medical Malpractice Statute of Repose in Georgia. After the expiration of this period, a lawsuit will not be valid.
What You Need for Processing a Malpractice Claim
Once you’ve ascertained that a medical error or malpractice caused your damage, the next thing to do is to build your evidence. To do this, you’ll need:
- An Affidavit from a Competent Medical Expert
In many U.S. states, including Georgia, an initial expert assessment of potential medical negligence is required before a medical malpractice lawsuit can proceed. This could be a neurosurgeon’s affidavit alleging negligence in adequately protecting your nerves during the surgery process.
- Your Medical Records
An initial assessment will show the current state of health, but that is not enough to charge a healthcare provider for negligence. You need to prove you never had any nerve damage prior to the surgery. The medical records of your health history come in handy here.
And since obtaining your medical record is a fundamental right in the United States, you can get such documents easily.
- Documentation of Damages
Your medical records and the physician’s assessment reports will only establish when medical negligence occurred. You still need to show the economic and non-economic damages resulting from the nerve injury.
Economic damages can include anything from lost salaries or wages to medical bills. With strong legal aid and documentation, you can also claim compensation for non-economic damages like emotional distress, depression, anxiety, and other psychological distress that may result from the damage.
On the other hand, non-economic compensation damages are usually tough to prove as they are mostly subjective and not easy to quantify. But with an experienced attorney and the required supporting documents, you will get a fair compensation.
How Much Compensation Can I Get for Nerve Damage?
Settlements may range from $15,000 for minor injuries to several millions of dollars for severe cases. However, thoroughly establishing the nerve injury and proving the resulting damages are the cornerstones of a strong surgical malpractice case. While the court will consider factors like injury severity, impact on lifestyle, and ability to work, your potential compensation largely depends on how strongly you present your case.
An expert medical malpractice attorney can help ensure your claim is successful by guiding you through the process of suit initiation, gathering evidence for compensatory damages, and offering expert insights that will strengthen your claim.
To get fair compensation, you need to do the following:
- Establish that a doctor was responsible for you
- Prove that the doctor failed to uphold the standard care required of a medical practitioner
- Show how this breach of duty caused you damage
Conclusion
Nerve damage can take a significant toll on the body, leaving you incapacitated in several areas. While there’s a legal provision to seek compensation for your loss, you must be able to validate your claim with supportive documents, show the severity of the injury suffered, and prove the damages resulting from the medical negligence.
This can be a really tough ride. Your best bet is to engage an experienced lawyer from start to finish.
