Delayed Treatment in Kidney Disease

Kidneys perform a vital role in the body by filtering out waste and excess fluids. When people develop chronic kidney disease, the build-up of waste and fluid can pose a dangerous health threat. Initially, you may not exhibit any signs or symptoms of kidney disease. Nevertheless, the doctors who diagnosed the disease should continue monitoring your kidney functions and provide appropriate treatment to prevent the disease from progressing to end-stage kidney failure. If you have been affected by a delayed treatment in kidney disease, you should consult the experienced Syracuse medical malpractice attorneys of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. We help clients who have been injured by a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of kidney disease.

Your doctor should be observant of signs of kidney disease, which include fatigue, weakness, vomiting, nausea, sleep problems, changes to urination, muscle cramps, and decreased mental sharpness. You may also experience high blood pressure, shortness of breath, itching, swelling, and chest pain. While your kidneys may try to adapt, irreversible damage could occur when no treatment is provided.

Chronic kidney disease can be caused by type 1 or 2 diabetes, glomerulonephritis, enlarged prostate, interstitial nephritis, polycystic kidney disease, vesicoureteral, and pyelonephritis. Additionally, if you smoke, are obese, have an abnormal kidney structure, or share a family history of kidney disease, you may have a higher risk of kidney disease. To monitor for kidney disease, your doctor should periodically order blood draws and urine tests, as well as take blood pressure measurements. It is important to ask your doctor whether you will need any tests. Even if you are correctly diagnosed with kidney disease, you still might not receive the correct or timely treatment for it. If you are harmed due to delayed diagnosis or delayed treatment, a medical malpractice claim may help you recover damages.

In order to establish medical malpractice, you will need to prove: (1) a doctor-patient relationship, (2) breach in the professional duty of care, (3) causation, and (4) damages. In some cases, doctors may lack sufficient information about signs or symptoms to make a diagnosis that would allow them to treat you appropriately. In other cases, they may rely on inaccurate lab tests or radiology films. Once a diagnosis is made, delayed treatment in kidney disease may constitute a breach in the professional duty of care.

You will need to show that the delayed treatment allowed your kidney disease to progress beyond what it would have if your physician provided more timely treatment. For example, if a Syracuse doctor failed to diagnose and treat your mother’s kidney disease, which was otherwise curable, and this delay resulted in her death, it may be possible to recover damages.

To establish that treatment was delayed and that, but for the delay, you would have gotten better and not suffered harm, you will need to retain a medical expert. In New York, an expert should be consulted prior to filing suit so that a certificate of merit can be filed with the medical malpractice complaint. Under Rule 3012-a, the certificate of merit needs to state that the plaintiff’s lawyer reviewed the case and consulted with a health care expert, and based on that consultation, the attorney reasonably believes the expert is knowledgeable about the relevant medical issues in your case and has concluded that a reasonable basis for the lawsuit to proceed exists.

You can recover economic and noneconomic losses arising out of the delayed treatment when the delay caused injuries. Economic losses can include medical bills, loss of income, replacement services, and out-of-pocket expenses. Noneconomic losses can include mental anguish, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment and loss of consortium. If your loved one died due to delayed treatment for kidney disease, a wrongful death lawsuit may award damages for burial and funeral expenses, medical expenses, as well as the loss of support and services provided by the deceased.

If you were harmed by delayed treatment for kidney disease, you should contact an experienced trial attorney as soon as possible. At DeFrancisco & Falgiatano, we represent patients, along with their families, who were harmed by medical malpractice in Syracuse, Rochester, and other places in Upstate New York, including in Auburn, Canandaigua, Lyons, Oswego, Watertown, Elmira, Herkimer, Ithaca, Lowville, Utica, Wampsville, Binghamton, Oneida, and Cooperstown. Please contact DeFrancisco & Falgiatano at 833-200-2000 or via our online form.