Have you been suffering from serious damage or pain after you had a procedure performed at the dentist? Are you feeling like the dentist that worked with you was negligent with how they treated your problem? You might be considering a lawsuit against them for medical malpractice. Malpractice can happen with dentists in the same way it happens with doctors. When serious cases of malpractice are ruled on in court, it could result in compensation to pay for suffering and related medical bills.

Before you file that lawsuit, you should go over your case and make sure it has the minimum requirements for a medical malpractice lawsuit. If not, you could end up paying legal fees while not getting anything in return. Consider these three things.

Was The Right Level of Care Followed?

For malpractice to be shown, you'll need some sort of benchmark of what any other dentist would do in the same situation. For instance, if you were having a wisdom tooth extracted and you felt like the proper procedures were not followed, you would have to prove that the dentist didn't follow those procedures. This is done by speaking with other dentists, and even having them testify about what they would do in a similar situation.

How Was The Right Level of Care Not Followed?

The key to winning a medical malpractice lawsuit will be proving that your dentist was negligent when they performed a procedure on you. You'll have to demonstrate that your dentist not only did not follow that correct level of care to you, but deviated from that level of care.

You might be suing because you experienced extreme pain during your tooth extraction. While the dentist may have followed the correct level of care by giving you anesthesia, malpractice could have occurred by them not giving you enough anesthesia. To you, it may have felt like no anesthesia was being used at all.

Did The Malpractice Cause You To Suffer?

The last component depends on if your injuries were substantial. This can mean long lasting pain, or even a financial related loss as a result of their malpractice. If you had only temporarily suffered discomfort or pain, you may not get a court to rule in your favor. If you ended up missing work and losing wages due to the pain that was caused, you could have proof of how the malpractice affected you.

For help gathering the evidence you need for a malpractice case against a dentist, work with a lawyer like The Law Office of Israel S Hernandez, PLLC.