Lakewood Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Suffering harm because a health care professional failed to meet accepted standards can turn your world upside down. Medical errors not only compromise patients’ health, but also rob victims and families of precious time and resources as they cope with injuries that often dramatically reduce quality of life. In the aftermath of clear-cut medical negligence, holding the responsible parties accountable is imperative to start the healing process.

If you or someone you love has been impacted by a health care provider’s mistakes in Lakewood, WA or surrounding Pierce County cities, the medical malpractice lawyers at Moseley Collins Law can help. For over 40 years, we have fought for justice when negligent actions – whether by individual doctors, nurses, or institutional entities – cause devastating harm. Securing fair compensation allows victims or grieving loved ones to move forward, while deterring further negligent practices. Contact us for dedicated legal guidance tailored to the unique circumstances surrounding your medical injury case.

Tragically, medical mistakes happen across all types of health care environments. Some facilities where we often see negligent actions resulting in permanent damage or death include:

Hospitals

Fast-paced hospital settings dealing with critical injuries and illness often have errors related to surgical complications, misdiagnoses due to overcrowded emergency rooms, insufficient patient monitoring and follow up treatment.

Ambulatory Surgery Centers

More routine procedures like colonoscopies, cataract surgery or orthopedic surgery often take place in outpatient day surgery centers today. Like hospitals though, surgery centers also carry risks of mistakes related to anesthesia, infections, medication administration and discharge instructions when appropriate diligence is not followed.

Clinics and Doctor’s Offices

Primary care facilities like clinics and doctor’s offices sometimes fail to order appropriate tests or make correct diagnoses. Prescribing contraindicated medications and disregarding drug interaction warnings can also cause patient harm when providers are negligent.

Long Term Care Facilities

Elderly residents in nursing homes, assisted living centers, memory care and rehabilitation facilities too often suffer harm when staff fail to deliver proper medical care related to wounds, infections, falls, nutrition, hydration, hygiene, medication administration oversight and more.

No matter what type of medical facility your incident involves, the lawyers at Moseley Collins Law can investigate what happened to assess if provider negligence appears evident and pursue maximum compensation if so.

Medical errors lead to many different types of catastrophic injuries every year. Some examples of the permanent damages negligent health care often causes include:

Birth Injuries

When health care teams fail to promptly respond to signs of fetal distress during labor and delivery, the consequences for infants can be lifelong impairments. These include:

• Cerebral palsy
• Erb’s or Klumpke’s palsy
• Hypoxia ischemia brain damage
• Facial paralysis

Surgical Errors

Operating rooms can quickly turn dangerous when surgical teams deviate from proper protocols. Some errors we see after botched surgeries include:

• Retained foreign objects left inside patients’ bodies
• Severed or damaged nerves impacting mobility and sensation
• Organ punctures or lacerations
• Hemorrhaging from uncontrolled bleeding
• Post-surgical wound infections

Misdiagnoses

Either failing to recognize symptoms or incorrectly interpreting tests can rob patients of optimal treatment windows. Some conditions we often see initially misdiagnosed because of provider negligence include:

• Heart attacks
• Strokes
• Cancer
• Meningitis
• Appendicitis
• Ectopic pregnancies

Anesthesia Errors

Improper administration of anesthesia or insufficient patient monitoring during surgery can quickly turn deadly. Damaging outcomes associated with anesthesia negligence include:

• Brain damage
• Paralysis
• Coma
• Death

Medication Errors

Hospitals and pharmacies sometimes administer or dispense inappropriate drugs or dosages. Adverse outcomes include:

• Allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock
• Organ failure
• Toxic reactions
• Overdoses
• Under-doses resulting in lack of treatment

Inadequate Patient Monitoring

Fully treating conditions requires diligent tracking of patients’ symptoms. When facilities fail to adequately monitor post-surgical complications, worsening infections, vital signs indicating deterioration or follow up care needs, negligence often directly causes permanent injury or death.

The dedicated patient advocates at Moseley Collins Law have seen countless instances of preventable medical harm across all these categories. We can evaluate what happened in your case to determine if you may have a strong claim.

Below are some of the largest medical facilities providing care to those living in Lakewood and Pierce County:

Madigan Army Medical Center – Tacoma’s Madigan Army Medical Center affiliated with Joint Base Lewis-McChord offers cutting edge care and surgery to service members, military families and eligible veterans in the South Sound.

MultiCare Tacoma General Hospital – Part of MultiCare's extensive Puget Sound regional network, Tacoma General Hospital provides specialty and emergency services as Pierce County's highest level trauma center.

St. Clare Hospital – Part of the CHI Franciscan system, Lakewood’s St. Clare Hospital delivers compassionate care with emphasis on excellent medical, spiritual and emotional support.

Good Samaritan Hospital – MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup offers full service care from childbirth services to joint replacement procedures and cancer treatment.

Puyallup Tribal Health Authority – Focusing on integrative wellness-based care, Puyallup Tribal Health Authority services tribal members while accepting most private insurance plans for others seeking care as well.

In addition to Lakewood medical malpractice cases, Moseley Collins Law assists clients living throughout Pierce County cities and towns including:

• Tacoma
• Puyallup
• Gig Harbor
• Bonney Lake
• Sumner
• Orting
• Buckley
• South Hill
• Spanaway
• Parkland
• University Place
• Fife
• Milton

Regardless of which Pierce County community you live in, our dedicated lawyers make ourselves available for an initial free consultation to discuss your health care injury case. We know meeting in person provides comfort and trust in the early aftermath of trauma caused by medical negligence, so we come to you.

Building a strong argument demonstrating medical malpractice caused preventable injury or death through negligence requires meticulous investigation and documentation. Our thorough lawyers take numerous steps to prove deviation from accepted standards of care directly harmed you or your loved one when filing a claim, including:

Reviewing Medical Records

We obtain complete copies of all medical charts, doctor’s notes, surgery logs, nurse charts, diagnostic films, pathology slides and related records pertinent to the patient’s care to identify red flags indicating negligence.

Consulting Independent Medical Experts

We retain physicians who provide unbiased expert opinions regarding whether your care failed to meet medical care standards. For example obstetricians, neurologists, infectious disease specialists and cardiologists may provide insight on a birth injury related to lack of oxygen.

Gathering Additional Supporting Evidence

Our lawyers also collect documented policies and procedures, clinical guidelines, medical journal articles, and consent forms the providers should have followed to demonstrate what care you should have reasonably expected to receive compared to what actually happened.

Proving Causation

In addition to proving subpar medical care occurred, we also have to demonstrate specifically how the negligent actions directly caused the patient’s injuries or death. By presenting timeline-based documentation of your worsening condition clearly linked to the avoidable actions, our lawyers establish justification for damages.

Calculating Financial and Personal Losses

Finally, to seek full compensation, our team retains finance, economics, vocational, and life care planning specialists to assess all monetary and quality of life losses you now face due to the malpractice. Documenting expenses like lost wages, home accessibility modifications, and future care needs helps the jury or judge fully grasp the true damage done.

With all evidence gathered methodically, we then aggressively pursue maximum compensation for damages through settlements or filing a lawsuit if the provider refuses reasonable negotiation. Contact us today to discuss your potential case after medical harm free of charge.

At Moseley Collins Law, we represent medical malpractice clients based on contingency fees rather than hourly billing. This means no money ever comes out of the injured person’s pocket for our services. Our fees only come from funds we obtain through case settlements or awards. If we cannot secure compensation on your behalf, you have no obligation to pay our law firm at all.

This mutually beneficial arrangement ensures victims can pursue justice with no upfront financial risk at vulnerable times. Simultaneously, contingency fees motivate our experienced lawyers to pursue maximum possible compensation through relentless negotiation, because our earnings rise proportionally to your total recovery amount. This unity between client and counsel goals facilitates the best outcomes.

During an initial free case consultation, we examine all the details surrounding your health care injury in Lakewood or elsewhere across Washington State. We then have an open discussion about findings related to standards of care based on years handling hundreds of cases. Possible next steps include:

Formally Retaining Our Firm

If we believe clear grounds exist showing provider negligence more likely than not caused your injury or loved one’s death, we will recommend officially retaining us to move forward filing a claim.

Referring You to a Different Firm

Alternatively, if we determine another firm may be better equipped to handle the unique circumstances in your case, we provide trustworthy recommendations to similarly reputable colleagues.

Declining Representation

As patient advocates first, our ethical standards dictate that if insufficient evidence exists proving malpractice occurred, we cannot proceed with filing a claim lacking factual merit.

Advising You Have No Case

In some cases, we must deliver the difficult news that facts and records demonstrate your case does not reasonably show medical negligence caused the injury. This painful conclusion is always conveyed with empathy and suggestions for other support services.

Regardless of whether we ultimately take your case, our goal is to provide caring, honest guidance so those harmed by medical errors understand their options. Schedule a free review with us online or by calling (800) 426-5546.

For over four decades, innocent victims of health care negligence and grieving families turn to Moseley Collins Law when seeking trusted counsel and tenacious advocacy after medical errors cause catastrophic harm. If you were impacted by provider mistakes in Lakewood or Pierce County, some key reasons to choose our firm include:

• Decades of medical malpractice expertise – Since the 1980s helping affected families
• Diligent, compassionate support – We know this is much more than “just a case”
• Contingency fee model – We only get paid if you receive financial recovery
• Record of delivering seven & eight figure results – Millions for past medical malpractice clients

If our law firm seems like an excellent fit for your needs, contact our office by phone or through our site to schedule a free case evaluation where we will review what happened and provide guidance for wise next steps. With over 40 years of combined medical malpractice experience amongst our lawyers, we have the determination, expertise and resources to secure you maximum compensation.

Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare professional fails to meet the accepted standard of care and this negligence results in injury, death, or monetary damages to the patient. Examples include surgical mistakes, improper prescriptions, and misdiagnoses due to inadequate testing, delayed treatment, and more.

Most medical malpractice lawyers work on a contingency fee basis meaning legal fees only come from settlement funds or court awards secured on the client’s behalf. This removes financial barriers to justice even when victims incur massive injury costs. If no compensation is obtained, no fees are owed.

Economic damages to cover quantifiable injury-related costs may include medical bills, rehabilitation services, lost wages, and future care needs. Non-economic damages like pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life may also be pursued given the life-altering impact of many medical injuries.

Yes, strict statutes of limitations govern how long victims have to pursue medical negligence cases legally. In WA, injured patients generally have 3 years from the negligence act, or 1 year from when they discovered the potential error. Meeting with a lawyer quickly is key.