Nassau County Medical Malpractice Lawyer

A claim generally needs four things: a doctor, nurse or hospital that was treating you; care that departed from accepted medical practice; proof that the departure, not the illness itself, caused harm; and real injury, such as added treatment, disability, lost earnings or death. Whether care fell below the standard is a medical question that a qualified medical expert usually has to answer from the records. A bad result alone is not malpractice.

Against a private doctor, practice or hospital, generally two years and six months from the malpractice, or from the last treatment where the same provider was still treating the same illness, injury or condition (CPLR 214-a). Narrow additional rules apply to some foreign objects and to a missed cancer, and infancy can extend the time up to ten years after the claim accrues; the deadlines section on this page sets out each branch. A personal-injury claim over care at Nassau University Medical Center is different: the Nassau Health Care Corporation must receive a notice of claim within the General Municipal Law 50-e period, generally 90 days, and suit is due within one year and 90 days of the event (Public Authorities Law 3415). A death claim has different notice and filing rules.

Damages can include past and future medical and care costs, lost earnings and earning capacity, and pain and suffering, including loss of enjoyment of life. A spouse may have a separate claim for loss of services. When a patient dies, the estate can bring wrongful death and survival claims. The amount depends on the injury, the proof of causation and the records, so we do not quote figures before a review. Past results do not predict the outcome of another case.

Medicine involves risk, and a known complication can happen even with careful treatment. Malpractice is care that a reasonably careful provider in the same field would not have given, or failed to give, in the same situation, such as a test that was plainly needed and not ordered, or an abnormal result that was never acted on. The standard does not change because a hospital is in Nassau County, and it is usually shown through expert medical testimony.

We review care at any Nassau County hospital, surgery center or private practice. What changes the rules is who runs it. Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow is run by the Nassau Health Care Corporation, a public benefit corporation, so its notice-of-claim rule applies. North Shore University Hospital, NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island, Mount Sinai South Nassau, St. Francis Hospital and Mercy Hospital are private, so no municipal notice applies. Naming a hospital here is not a suggestion that anything went wrong there.

You do not hire one yourself. Usually, before filing, your attorney consults an appropriately licensed practitioner (a physician, or a dentist or podiatrist for those claims) and signs a certificate of merit stating there is a reasonable basis for the case (CPLR 3012-a). It is the attorney’s certificate, not an expert affidavit, and the statute allows limited alternatives, such as filing it later when a deadline is about to run. Expert medical testimony is usually needed on the standard of care and causation; we arrange that review.

Records have to be collected from every provider, reviewed by medical experts, and exchanged with the lawyers for the hospitals and doctors. Depositions of the treating staff and expert disclosure follow, and the full extent of an injury may not be clear for some time. How long that takes depends on the case and the court calendar, so we do not promise a timeline. We explain what is driving the schedule in your case as it moves.

If you need medical care, get it; decisions about your treatment and doctors are for you and your medical providers. Then write down dates, names and what you were told, request copies of your records (Public Health Law 18), keep discharge papers and medication labels, and check whether the care was at Nassau University Medical Center or another Nassau Health Care Corporation facility, because that notice deadline is short. Talk to a lawyer before giving a recorded statement.

We do not publish statistics for any hospital. Malpractice claims in general often involve a delayed or missed diagnosis, surgical and anesthesia errors, medication errors, emergency department discharges that should not have happened, failures to monitor a patient or a labor, and infections or pressure injuries tied to lapses in care. Whether any of these happened in your care is a question for the records and an expert review.

Possibly, but a complication is not malpractice by itself. The questions are whether the surgery and the care after it met accepted practice, whether you were told the reasonably foreseeable risks and alternatives before a non-emergency procedure (Public Health Law 2805-d), and whether a departure caused the harm. North Shore University Hospital is a private Northwell Health hospital, so no municipal notice of claim applies and the general CPLR 214-a deadline usually controls. Bring the operative report and discharge papers you have.

The case starts in the Supreme Court with a summons and complaint, usually accompanied by the attorney’s certificate of merit, and is then served on each doctor, practice or hospital. A personal-injury claim over care at Nassau University Medical Center also needs the earlier notice of claim on the Nassau Health Care Corporation. Claims against the State or the federal government go to separate forums. Supreme Court, Nassau County sits in Mineola, but which county a case belongs in depends on the parties and where the care happened; we confirm the court and the deadlines at the review.