The Overlooked Emergency Room Cause of Action: F.S. 395.1041

Florida passed a law similar to the federal EMTALA in 1988, which requires hospitals to examine and stabilize patients who come to the emergency room. If a patient is not properly examined and stabilized, they may have a private cause of action against the hospital. This law provides a possible remedy for patients who were misdiagnosed in the emergency room and suffered harm as a result. If you go to a general hospital with an emergency, they have to give you medical care right away. They have to check you out and decide if you need treatment to fix the emergency. The definition of an emergency is really broad, so most serious medical problems should qualify. If your claim doesn’t fit these rules, it might not be worth it to pursue legally. If someone has a medical emergency and goes to the hospital, the hospital has a duty to examine and treat them. If the hospital fails to do this and the person is harmed as a result, the person can sue the hospital for damages. This applies to everyone, not just people who are poor or uninsured. If a hospital discriminates based on someone’s economic status, that is also illegal. In simple terms, when trying to understand what the legislature meant in a law, it’s not appropriate to look outside of the law itself. The law already contains clear statements of what the legislature intended. For example, in Chapter 395 of Florida Statutes, it specifically states that the legislature’s goal is to protect public health and safety in hospitals and surgical centers. There’s nothing in that statement to suggest that these laws only apply to certain groups of people. Plus, there’s another specific statement about access to emergency services, showing that the legislature’s intent is to ensure everyone can get the care they need in an emergency. The law says that hospitals and doctors must provide emergency care to everyone who needs it, regardless of whether they can pay for it or not. This rule is even broader than a federal law that says the same thing. So, if a hospital or doctor doesn’t give you the right care in an emergency, you may have a right to sue them. Just because you have insurance or money doesn’t mean they can deny you care. In Florida, the law for emergency medical conditions goes beyond the federal law. While the federal law only requires stabilizing a patient or transferring them to another facility, Florida’s law requires emergency services and care, which includes treatment to eliminate the problem. EMTALA and the Florida statute have different requirements for when hospitals have to provide emergency medical treatment. Under EMTALA, hospitals only have to treat or transfer a patient if they determine the patient has an emergency medical condition. In Florida, hospitals have to provide treatment whenever someone requests emergency care, without needing to make a diagnosis first. However, the Florida law does have some limitations on liability for providers who refuse to treat a patient after evaluating them and determining they don’t have an emergency condition, or if the hospital doesn’t have the capability to provide the necessary services. In Florida, a healthcare provider can’t be sued for not treating a patient in the emergency room if they conducted the required examination and determined there was no emergency medical condition, or if the hospital didn’t have the capability to treat it. However, if the healthcare provider didn’t examine the patient or didn’t do it properly, they can be sued for malpractice. If the patient wins the case, they can get their legal fees covered, but if the healthcare provider wins, they don’t get anything. In some medical malpractice cases, there are special rules and limitations that can make it harder for the person who was harmed to seek compensation. However, a specific law in Florida, F.S. §395.1041, may provide an easier path for people to make a claim if they were harmed in an emergency room. This law may allow them to use a longer time limit to file their claim and avoid some of the extra steps required in typical medical malpractice cases. It may also help them get fair compensation if a loved one died due to medical malpractice. The Florida statute F.S. §395.1041 provides a way for women in labor to sue hospitals for medical malpractice. This is different from other medical malpractice laws and may have some advantages for the plaintiffs. It may take some time for the courts to figure out how this law works, but it could be a big deal for people who want to sue a hospital for problems during childbirth.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/the-overlooked-emergency-room-cause-of-action-f-s-395-1041/