Going to the dentist is not a very enjoyable experience for many but what makes it worse is when the dentist fails to live up to the standards of dental care and does more harm than good. Why would you waste your hard-earned money to get a tooth extraction, only to discover that you have ended up with nerve damage? Dental malpractice cases can range from improper use of dental anaesthesia, wrong diagnosis, nerve damage because of dental implants to faulty treatments and equipment.
In such cases, it is always advisable to hire a dental malpractice lawyer to help fight your case and get you the right amount of compensation. Compensation should cover lost wages, severity of pain and suffering, medical bills and in some instances even the future dental expenses. The following are the ways in which your lawyer can help you sue the dentist and win your case:
Dentist-Patient Relationship
You lawyer will foremost have to prove that the person treating you was in fact your dentist. This can be easily proven through past records and payment slips. This option helps establish that your dentist neglected his dentist-patient relationship and did not provide adequate care.
Standard of Dental Care
When making a case against your dentist, your lawyer will have to prove that the former violated the dental standard of care. He will have to prove that he performed some procedure or administered some medicine that was not clinically acceptable.
An Injury
The next step is a follow through of the second. The lawyer must show that due to this negligent care, you were harmed or injured in some way. For instance, suppose your dentist performed a lingual frenectomy and cut way too deep and thus damaged a nerve in your tongue.
Get Other Doctors’ Opinions
What most lawyers, like the ones at Clarke Law, do is get a second and third doctor’s opinion on the nature and cause of the injury. If the qualified doctors can help corroborate the fact that your injury was due to the dentist’s negligence, you have a better chance of winning the case.
If your lawyer is successful in proving your case, then your claim will be paid by the Canadian Medical Protective Association. The Canadian Medical Protective Association defends all Canadian medical doctors and gets its funds from the yearly fees of physicians.
In Toronto, you have up to two years to sue your dentist for any sort of malpractice. So if you feel like your dentist has done some damage and harmed you in any way or been negligent, you should ask your dental malpractice lawyer to start filing a case against him within two years of the treatment. It will not be a long legal battle as long as your lawyer can prove that the injury or harm was due to the dentist’s faulty care and treatment. You will be given the adequate amount of compensation to cover all your medical expenses, according to the gravity of the situation.
References
- http://www.murphybattista.com/2012/12/five-things-you-should-know-about-medical-malpractice-claims
- http://www.rcdso.org/PublicProtection/ProfessionalLiabilityProgram/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
- http://enlightenme.com/top-10-medical-malpractice/
- http://www.oralanswers.com/sue-your-dentist-and-win-malpractice-lawsuit/
- http://www.levintertoronto.ca/dental_malpractice.html
