Missed or late diagnosis
A late answer is not always a wrong one.
Cancer, stroke, infection, a clot, an aneurysm: what hurts people is rarely the illness alone but the weeks or months it went unnamed. A diagnosis can be late for ordinary reasons. It becomes a claim when a careful clinician with the same symptoms and results would have acted sooner, and the delay changed what could be done.
So we map the delay. We find when the first symptom was reported, what was ordered, what came back and who opened it, then ask a physician in the right specialty what the earlier path would have looked like.
Where the delay hides
- A scan or a pathology slide read incorrectly
- A result that was never passed on, or never followed up
- Symptoms sent home without a work-up
- A referral that was never made, or never completed
- A diagnosis made, but treatment started late
The chronology
The timeline is the case
We lay the chart out day by day: each visit, call and portal message, each order, each result and the date someone opened it. Gaps show up on the page. So do the places where a note says one thing and the orders say another.
Then the reviewing physician reads it with the images in hand, not only the reports.
What goes on the timeline
Every visit, phone call and portal message
Orders, results and who opened them
Imaging reports and the images themselves
Referrals, and what became of them
The date the diagnosis was finally made
What the review answers
What the physician is asked
In a diagnosis case the questions are about time, and each one is answered on the timeline.
- 01
Should it have been found sooner?
Whether the symptoms and results at each visit called for another test, a referral or a closer look.
- 02
What would sooner have changed?
What treatment, and what outlook, were available then and no longer are.
- 03
Whose job was the follow-up?
Who ordered the test, who received the result, and who was supposed to tell you.
About delayed diagnosis
I was told my test was normal. Can I still ask?
Yes. A report can be wrong, and the images can say something the report did not. Bring the dates and we will ask for both.
Do I need the images, or only the report?
We want both. Radiology cases are often decided by what a second specialist sees on the images themselves.
The illness might have been serious anyway. Is there still a case?
Possibly. The question is what earlier treatment would have changed: options, time, or the odds. A reviewing physician answers it, and sometimes the answer is that it would have changed nothing.
What if my doctor says nothing was missed?
That is common, and it may be right. It is not a substitute for an independent review of the records.
Start with the dates
A first visit, a scan, the day you heard the diagnosis. Those three dates are enough to begin.
Free first call. Fees are contingency: no attorney fee unless there is a recovery. Costs are explained in writing before you sign.