Orange County Medical Malpractice Lawyer

When medical care causes an unexpected injury or a health condition worsens because of a delayed diagnosis or treatment error, you may have questions about whether the care you received met accepted medical standards.

Hodes Milman has more than 30 years of experience handling medical malpractice claims and has recovered more than $400 million for our clients. Our Orange County medical malpractice lawyer team represents patients and families throughout San Juan Capistrano, Irvine, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo, and surrounding communities.

If you believe you or a loved one was harmed by negligent medical care, contact Hodes Milman online or call (949) 640-8222 for a free consultation.

What Is Considered Medical Malpractice in Orange County?

Medical malpractice is when a healthcare professional, like a doctor or nurse, fails to provide the level of care expected in their field, and that mistake, either through negligence or an omission, harms a patient.

If another doctor or healthcare provider with similar training and experience would have handled the situation differently, the responsible professional could be held accountable for your injury. Negligence can happen in many ways, like during diagnosis, surgery, or ongoing health management. Medical malpractice involves preventable errors that could have been avoided.

For patients in Irvine, Santa Ana, Anaheim, and other Orange County communities, the same standard applies whether the care was provided at a large hospital, an outpatient surgery center, a specialist's office, or another medical facility.

Do I Have a Medical Malpractice Case?

You may start wondering whether something went wrong with your care after receiving a different diagnosis, learning that a test result was missed, developing an unexpected complication, or finding out that treatment should have happened sooner. 

That can happen after treatment at a hospital in Irvine, an outpatient facility in Newport Beach, a specialist's office in Mission Viejo, or another healthcare facility in Orange County.

Determining whether you have a medical malpractice case usually comes down to four questions:

• What standard of care applied to your healthcare provider?
• Did the provider fail to meet that standard?
• Did the failure cause an injury or make your condition worse?
• What medical, financial, and personal losses resulted?

Medical records and expert review often provide the answers. In a delayed cancer diagnosis case, for example, a specialist may examine when the cancer could reasonably have been detected and whether earlier treatment would have affected the patient's prognosis or treatment options.

Your Orange County malpractice lawyer can then use that medical evidence to evaluate whether there is a basis for pursuing a claim.

How Long Do I Have to File an Orange County Medical Malpractice Lawsuit?

California gives you a limited amount of time to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Under the statute of limitations, the deadline is generally the earlier of:

• Three years from the date of the injury, or
• One year from the date you discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the injury.

Different deadlines or exceptions may apply in certain situations, including cases involving minors.

California also generally requires you to give the healthcare provider at least 90 days' written notice before filing the lawsuit.

The deadline is not always measured from the day you received treatment. You may not learn that a missed diagnosis, surgical error, or other medical mistake caused your injury until weeks or months later. That makes when the injury occurred and when you discovered it important to determining how much time you have to file.

If you suspect negligent care at an Orange County hospital, medical office, surgery center, or other healthcare facility caused your injury, having the timeline reviewed promptly can help determine which deadline applies.

How Does a Medical Malpractice Attorney in Orange County Prove Medical Malpractice?

Proving medical malpractice requires more than showing that something went wrong during your medical care. Your attorney must establish that the healthcare provider failed to meet the applicable standard of care and that the failure caused you harm.

Building that case generally requires proving four elements:

• Duty of Care: A doctor, hospital, or other healthcare provider was responsible for your care and owed you a professional duty.
• Breach of the Standard of Care: The provider failed to deliver the level of care that a reasonably careful healthcare provider would have provided under similar circumstances. Medical expert testimony is often used to establish this standard.
• Causation: The provider's negligence caused or contributed to your injury. For example, a misdiagnosis may have delayed treatment and allowed your condition to worsen.
• Damages: The injury resulted in losses such as additional medical treatment, lost income, pain, disability, or future care needs.

Your Orange County medical malpractice lawyer will use medical records, expert opinions, testimony, and other evidence to establish these elements and connect the medical error to the harm you suffered.

Inside the Fight Against Medical Malpractice: Attorney Dan Hodes’ Thoughts and Approach

Listen to attorney Dan Hodes reveal his approach to handling complex medical malpractice cases. With years of success in the courtroom, Dan provides a unique perspective on how victims can pursue justice for preventable medical mistakes.

What Kinds of Cases Does an Orange County Medical Malpractice Attorney Handle?

Medical malpractice can happen during a hospital stay, surgery, emergency room visit, routine appointment, or other medical treatment. Hodes Milman handles cases involving many types of medical negligence, including:

Birth Injuries

Birth injury cases may involve injuries to the mother or child before, during, or immediately after delivery. These cases can involve:

• Failure to respond to fetal distress
• Delayed C-sections
• Oxygen deprivation and cerebral palsy
• Medication errors during labor
• Negligent prenatal or delivery care

Misdiagnosis and Delayed Diagnosis

A misdiagnosis can cost a patient valuable treatment time. We handle claims involving delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and failure to diagnose conditions such as cancer, stroke, infections, and heart conditions.

Medication Errors

Medication mistakes can happen when a drug is prescribed, dispensed, or administered. Cases may involve:

• The wrong medication or dosage
• Dangerous drug interactions
• Overlooked allergies
• Overprescribing medication
• Failure to monitor a patient's response to a drug

Surgical and Anesthesia Errors

Invasive procedure errors may include wrong-side or wrong-site surgery, surgical instruments or other items left inside a patient, organ or nerve damage, anesthesia errors, and failures to recognize complications after surgery.

Emergency Room and Hospital Errors

Patients who arrive at an emergency room with symptoms of a stroke, heart attack, sepsis, internal bleeding, or another medical emergency may suffer serious harm when those symptoms are missed or treatment is delayed.

Hospital malpractice cases may also involve preventable infections, inadequate post-surgical care, or failures to monitor a patient whose condition is deteriorating.

Elder Abuse and Medical Sexual Assault

Our attorneys also handle cases involving related legal issues such as elder abuse and medical sexual assault. These claims can involve individual healthcare providers as well as facilities responsible for patient care and safety.

Our Orange County medical malpractice lawyers represent patients and families throughout Irvine, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo, and surrounding Orange County communities.

How a Medical Error Can Change a Patient's Outcome

A missed diagnosis is one example of how medical negligence can affect a patient's health and treatment options. In cancer cases, the timing of a diagnosis may determine whether the disease is treatable, what treatment is required, and a patient's prognosis.

In this video, attorney Dan Hodes discusses early cancer detection and how a delayed or missed diagnosis may become the basis of a medical malpractice claim. The same questions that arise in these cases are important throughout medical malpractice litigation: What should the provider have done, what went wrong, and how did it affect the patient?

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What Does a Medical Malpractice Attorney in Orange County Do for Your Case?

Medical malpractice cases can involve thousands of pages of medical records, complicated treatment histories, and questions that require input from physicians and other medical specialists. Your attorney investigates the care you received and builds the evidence needed to show where the medical provider went wrong and how that error harmed you.

That work may include:

• Obtaining your complete medical records, test results, imaging, and other documentation from the providers and facilities involved in your care.
• Reviewing your treatment timeline to identify missed diagnoses, delayed treatment, surgical errors, medication mistakes, or other potential failures in care.
• Consulting qualified medical experts who can evaluate whether your provider met the applicable standard of care and whether a failure caused your injury.
• Taking depositions and obtaining testimony from doctors, nurses, hospital employees, and other witnesses.
• Gathering evidence of your losses, including medical bills, lost income, future treatment needs, and the effect the injury has had on your daily life.
• Working with economists, rehabilitation specialists, life-care planners, and other experts when serious or permanent injuries create long-term financial and medical needs.

Hodes Milman has the resources to fund this investigation and retain the experts a medical malpractice case may require. We handle the records, expert review, legal filings, depositions, and other demands of the case so you can focus on your health and your family.

Hiring a lawyer may feel like a big step, especially if you have never filed a legal claim before. But medical malpractice cases require medical evidence, expert review, and an understanding of the laws that apply to these claims.

A Martindale-Nolo survey found that more than 90% of people who hired a lawyer received a settlement or award, compared with about 50% of those who handled their claims on their own.

Contact our Orange County offices online or call (949) 640-8222 to talk with our team about what happened and whether you may have a medical malpractice claim.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Medical Malpractice Attorney in Orange County?

At Hodes Milman, your initial consultation is free, and we handle medical malpractice cases on a contingency fee basis. You do not pay attorney’s fees upfront. If we recover compensation for you, our fee is paid as a percentage of that recovery. If we do not recover compensation, you do not owe us an attorney’s fee.

We also advance the costs of pursuing your case, which may include obtaining medical records, hiring medical experts, taking depositions, and paying court filing fees. These expenses can become substantial in a medical malpractice case, but you do not have to fund the litigation while your case is pending.

Before we take your case, we will explain how our fees and case costs work so you know what to expect.

“My husband received bad medical care and as a result almost died. I was fortunate enough to be referred to Jeff Milman. Jeff was so easy to talk to and worked so hard to get us a settlement. He kept us informed every step of the way. It was so great to have someone who believed in us after what we went through. We are forever grateful for the work he did on our behalf and would highly recommend him to anyone in our situation.”

– Cyndi Farrington | Client

What Types of Compensation Can an Orange County Medical Malpractice Attorney Help Me Get?

Medical malpractice can set you on a long and difficult road to recovery. Many people suffer irreversible harm that requires long-term and costly medical care. However, a medical malpractice lawsuit can help you recover valuable financial support, including:

• Past and Future Medical Expenses: Compensation for surgeries, medications, ongoing therapy, doctor visits, and more.
• Pain and Suffering: Being the victim of medical malpractice is mentally and physically taxing. You may be able to secure compensation for the emotional and physical pain you’ve endured.
• Lost Wages and Future Earning Capacity: Your injuries could prevent you from working for a long time or keep you from returning to work at all, but you could recover compensation to cover what you would have earned.
• Wrongful Death: If your loved one dies due to medical malpractice, you could recover compensation for burial and funeral expenses, income the deceased contributed to your family, and loss of companionship.

At Hodes Milman, we have recovered over $200 million on behalf of our clients and have recovered impressive awards in several medical malpractice cases, including:

• $17.25 Million Settlement: A 39-year-old man suffered a stroke during surgery after his kidney condition was misdiagnosed, and it was argued the surgery should not have been performed given his compromised kidney function.
• $12.35 Million Settlement: Three patients developed surgical site infections after being operated on by an orthopedic surgeon colonized with MSSA, leading to severe complications for two.
• $10.9 Million Verdict: A record-setting jury verdict for a 34-year-old woman after a cancer misdiagnosis.
• $7.9 Million Settlement: An infant suffered a birth injury due to missed signs of fetal distress during labor, leading to lifelong care needs.

While there is no one answer to how much a medical malpractice settlement or verdict award may be, our case results show how effective the team at Hodes Milman is in securing compensation for our clients.

California has recently raised the compensation caps for medical malpractice cases, increasing the amount of damages available to medical malpractice patients and families.

Why Choose Hodes Milman?

A medical malpractice case may begin with a medical record, but for you, it began with something that happened to your health or to someone you love. Hodes Milman understands the difference.

Our attorneys take the time to learn what happened, how the injury has affected your family, and what you need from us throughout the case. You will know who is handling your case, receive updates as it progresses, and have access to your legal team when you have questions.

That personal attention comes with substantial medical malpractice experience. Dan Hodes has spent nearly 40 years handling medical malpractice litigation, and Hodes Milman has recovered more than $400 million for clients. The firm also has extensive jury trial experience and the resources to work with the physicians and other experts these cases require.

We prepare thoroughly because your case is personal to you. From reviewing years of medical records to understanding how an injury has changed your daily life, our attorneys want to know the details that matter to your case and to your family.

If you believe you were harmed by medical negligence, call (949) 640-8222 or contact Hodes Milman online for a free consultation.

Proudly Representing Orange County Residents