We are experienced lawyers in Chicago who will talk to you for free. Since 2001 we have helped people who need a lawyer referral or just advice. Call us at 800-517-1614 any time to speak with an attorney in confidence or fill out our contact form and we will call you.

The best thing an attorney can do is take the emotion out of a situation and focus on facts.  That doesn’t mean your lawyer shouldn’t have empathy or care about you.  They should.  It’s just that when push comes to shove we can really help you by telling you like it is.

This is true when it comes to answering the question, “Do I have a lawsuit for failure to diagnose cancer?” People call us because they want to know if there might be a case, will then win and how much it might be worth.

We can never answer for sure without seeing your medical records, but there are questions successful lawyers ask to weed out good cases from bad.

The first question will likely be, how long is the delay?  Generally speaking, you need at least a six month delay from when you first reported symptoms until you were properly diagnosed.  Not that a three to four month delay is ideal, but in most cases that isn’t enough to show that a proper diagnosis would have changed your ultimate outcome.  The cases we’ve been most successful on have more than a one year delay, but six months is almost always the minimum for winning. Otherwise the case becomes defendable.

The other key question we want to know is what was your health before this?  Sadly, doctors can get away with negligence when a person is very sick already and likely did not have a long life expectancy. In those cases it can cost more to bring a lawsuit than you can recover.  On the other hand, if you are a relatively healthy person and go to your doctor with a lump in your breast and they say it’s nothing, if a year later it turns out you have stage four breast cancer, that’s definitely a case worth investigating.

The last question is what do your medical records show?  If your doctor suggested a course of action and you ignore it, that can end your case. If they don’t say what you say happened, it can end your case.  No medical malpractice lawyer can say if there is for sure a good case or not without seeing your records.

We’ve been involved in pursuing lawsuits for all sorts of failures to diagnose cancer.  That said, the most common errors are for skin cancer (melanoma), breast cancer, colon, prostate, lung, and cervical cancer.

We are happy to speak to you for free to see if there is a case worth investigating. Every attorney we recommend has a great track record of success and does not charge a penny unless they win the case.