Clifton Springs Hospital

Clifton Springs Hospital & Clinic is a community hospital and nursing home located in the Finger Lakes Region of Ontario County. Located about 25 miles southeast of Rochester, it has 262 beds. It is part of the Rochester Regional Health Eastern Region. When you go to the doctor, you assume that you will be diagnosed and treated appropriately. Unfortunately, doctors make mistakes, and so do hospital staff members. These errors may cause substantial harm to patients. Not every mistake that a doctor or nurse makes qualifies as medical malpractice, but it is important to talk to an experienced medical malpractice attorney about your situation. If you suspect that you were harmed by medical malpractice at Clifton Springs Hospital, you should consult the Ontario County medical malpractice lawyers at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano.

If you are trying to prove medical malpractice, you will need to show by a preponderance of the evidence that: (1) the health care defendant failed to abide by accepted medical community standards and practices, (2) this failure was the legal cause of your injuries, and (3) you sustained actual damages. Failures to abide by the professional standard of care may include not listing a possible diagnosis when developing a differential diagnosis, failing to take a patient history, failing to adequately test the possible diagnoses, misinterpreting test results or imaging, making surgical errors, or failing to obtain informed consent for a procedure.

Before filing a lawsuit, your attorney will need to retain an expert who can provide an opinion on what the professional duty of care was under the circumstances, how the defendant deviated from that standard, and proximate causation. The expert will review your medical records to determine whether there is a reasonable basis to sue. In spite of this hurdle, doctors and hospitals may try to get a medical malpractice lawsuit dismissed early in the litigation. Often, they do this by filing a motion for summary judgment. The motion will argue to the court that the plaintiff did not show that the defendant deviated from the accepted practices and standards of the medical community or that legal causation was not established. If a defendant prevails on summary judgment, there will not be a trial, so it is essential for a medical malpractice lawyer to defeat this motion.

In a lack of informed consent lawsuit, meanwhile, you will need to prove that a health care provider failed to disclose the risks and alternatives to a procedure or treatment that a reasonable health care provider would have disclosed, and a reasonable person in your situation would have decided not to go through the procedure or treatment.

Generally, a hospital can be liable for a doctor's malpractice when the doctor is actually employed by the hospital. However, in many cases, a doctor is an independent contractor. When a doctor is an independent contractor, but the hospital's acts lead others to believe that it has given authority to the doctor or that the doctor is an employee, the hospital may be held liable for the doctor's medical malpractice under the doctrine of apparent agency.

If you establish medical malpractice against a health care provider at Clifton Springs Hospital or against the hospital itself, you may be able to recover economic and noneconomic damages. These damages may include income loss, medical bills, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment, and replacement services. The damages will depend on the extent and nature of the injuries. For example, if you are left paralyzed by medical malpractice during a spine surgery, you may be able to recover compensation for alterations to your house, as well as replacement services, medical equipment, and lifelong care.

If you have been injured or lost a loved one to a wrongful death because of medical malpractice at Clifton Springs Hospital, our law firm may be able to help you recover damages from the responsible parties. DeFrancisco & Falgiatano represents patients throughout the Rochester area and elsewhere in Ontario County. Call us at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form.