Medical malpractice lawyers in Fort Wayne: how Indiana claims work

Personal Injury Attorney Fort Wayne is a free attorney referral service, not a law firm. It can connect you with a participating independent attorney’s office, and its directory of Fort Wayne injury law firms shows which local firms name medical malpractice among their practice areas. Nothing on this page is legal advice.

What medical malpractice means in everyday terms

Medical malpractice is a claim that a health care provider’s act or omission harmed a patient. Not every bad outcome is malpractice: medicine carries real risks, and a treatment can fail even when everyone does everything right. The question a lawyer looks at is whether the care fell short of what it should have been, and whether that shortfall caused the harm.

People call about many kinds of situations. A diagnosis that came too late. A surgical error. A medication mix-up. Problems during birth. Neglect in a care setting. Each turns on its own records and its own medical questions, which is why these claims usually involve review by other health care providers before anything else happens.

Indiana’s medical review panel

The biggest difference from other injury claims is the medical review panel. Under Indiana law, a lawsuit against a health care provider generally cannot start in an Indiana court until the proposed complaint has gone to a medical review panel and the panel has given its opinion. There is one exception: a patient may sue directly when the claim is for $15,000 or less.

Here is how the process is laid out in Indiana Code 34-18, in general terms:

1. The proposed complaint is filed with the Indiana Department of Insurance, the office of the insurance commissioner.
2. A panel is formed. It has one attorney, who chairs it and does not vote, and three health care providers.
3. The panel looks at the evidence and gives a written opinion on the claim.
4. After the opinion, the claim can move to court if the patient chooses to go forward.

Filing the proposed complaint with the Department of Insurance pauses the deadline to sue. Under Indiana law, it stays paused until 90 days after the claimant receives the panel’s opinion. The panel’s opinion is one step on the way. It does not end the claim on its own.

The deadline for malpractice claims in Indiana

Most Indiana injury claims follow a two-year rule counted from when the claim arises. Malpractice works differently. Under Indiana Code 34-18-7-1, a claim against a health care provider generally has to be filed within two years after the date of the alleged act, omission or neglect itself.

Children are treated differently too, and not in the way many parents expect. For most injuries, Indiana gives a child extra time, counted from age 18. For malpractice, the statute says the two-year rule applies regardless of minority, with one exception: a child who was under six years old has until the eighth birthday to file.

Damages limits and the patient’s compensation fund

Indiana caps what can be recovered in a malpractice claim. For an act of malpractice after June 30, 2019, the total amount recoverable for an injury or death of a patient may not exceed $1,800,000, under Indiana Code 34-18-14-3. A qualified health care provider is not liable for more than $500,000, and any amount above what the providers owe is paid from the patient’s compensation fund.

A cap is a ceiling, not a typical amount, and it says nothing about what any claim is worth. Whether a given provider is qualified under the Act, and how the fund works in a particular claim, are questions for a lawyer who has seen the records.

One more Indiana rule can matter here. In a personal injury or wrongful death action, the court generally allows evidence of certain payments the patient already received from other sources before trial, such as some insurance benefits, so that nobody is paid twice for the same loss. Life insurance, insurance the patient or family paid for directly, and government payments are treated differently. The rule is in Indiana Code 34-44-1.

Records to gather before you talk with a lawyer

Malpractice claims are built on records. You do not need everything before the first call, but the more you have, the more a lawyer can tell you. Each provider’s records office can tell you how to request your file.

• A timeline. Dates of appointments, procedures, hospital stays and when symptoms changed. Write it while you remember.
• Names. The doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics and pharmacies involved.
• Your records. Visit notes, test results, imaging reports, discharge papers and medication lists.
• Bills and insurance statements. These show what care you received and when.
• Your own notes. What you were told, by whom, and when. Messages through a patient portal count.
• Later care. Records from any doctor who treated the problem afterward.

Keep copies of everything you send to anyone, and note the date you asked for records.

When a family loses someone after medical care

If a patient dies and the family believes care was at fault, both the malpractice rules and Indiana’s wrongful death rules can come into play. A wrongful death claim is generally brought by the personal representative of the person who died, and different rules apply when the person who died was a child or an adult with no dependents. The wrongful death guide for Fort Wayne families covers that side in more detail.

How malpractice lawyers are usually paid

Injury lawyers in Indiana commonly work for a share of any recovery under a contingency fee agreement. Indiana requires that agreement to be in writing and signed by the client, stating how the fee is figured and how expenses are handled. Ask exactly which costs you could owe, and when. Indiana also limits fees in malpractice claims specifically, as the questions below explain.

Before you sign anything, it is reasonable to ask a lawyer:

• Have you taken malpractice claims through the Indiana medical review panel?
• Who will review my records, and will a health care provider look at them?
• Which deadline do you think applies to my situation, and why?
• What costs might I owe, and are they taken out before or after your fee?
• How will you keep me updated while the panel considers the claim?

Finding a medical malpractice attorney in Fort Wayne

There are two ways to start from this site. The free referral line connects you with the intake team of a participating independent attorney’s office; calls may be recorded, and the office should tell you its name. Or you can pick a firm yourself from the A to Z directory, where each listing shows the firm’s own address, phone, website and the practice areas its own site names. Several list medical malpractice.

If a lawsuit follows the panel, it would generally be filed in the Allen Circuit Court or the Allen Superior Court for a Fort Wayne matter. Either way, the choice of lawyer is yours. Related guides: the Indiana tort claim notice, which matters when a public hospital or agency is involved, and questions to ask an injury lawyer.

Questions people ask