Your treating medical professional should have taken the Hippocratic Oath at the onset of their career, in which they should have promised to prioritize the health and well-being of patients. They should also comply with federal laws that specifically prohibit discriminatory behaviors or actions against patients based on race, color, national origin, sex (i.e., pregnancy status, sexual orientation, and gender identity), age, or disability. But unfortunately, you must still have the intuition that you are being mistreated due to your being part of a certain protected class. You may be valid in your feelings, so please follow along to find out whether it is possible to sue a doctor for discrimination and how a proficient New York City medical malpractice attorney at Mark L. Bodner, P.C. can help support your claims.
In what ways might a doctor discriminate against me?
Sadly, discrimination against patients may happen in the medical field more often than you initially anticipate. Some behaviors and actions may be more subliminal than others. Nonetheless, the most common examples, which you may unfortunately relate to, are as follows:
- A doctor may prioritize offering their medical care services to younger patients over older patients.
- A doctor may implement certain rules and policies into their practice that disadvantage patients with disabilities.
- A doctor may treat patients of a certain race, color, or national origin with less courtesy or respect in their appointments.
- A doctor may provide different, less effective treatments to patients based on negative judgments of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Under what circumstances can I sue a doctor for discrimination?
Of note, patient profiling is the more official term to describe a doctor’s discriminatory behaviors or actions against their patients. That is, patient profiling is considered when a doctor treats a patient based on their “type,” or category of protected class they fall under, rather than accessing their healthcare needs individually. Oftentimes, patient profiling leads to complications within a patient’s treatment journey. In other words, it leads to negligence and a subsequent medical malpractice incident. This is all to say that you may have grounds to file a civil lawsuit against a doctor for discrimination if you can prove the following circumstances as true:
- A doctor profiled you based on your race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.
- A doctor negligently based their prescribed treatment plan on your profile rather than your personal needs.
- You experienced issues with your doctor’s initial diagnosis, recommended medical treatment, or illness management tactics.
- These issues caused you to experience further injuries, worsened illnesses, and ultimately economic and non-economic damages.
For more information on if and when to pursue legal action, please don’t hesitate to contact a talented New York City medical malpractice attorney from Mark L. Bodner, P.C. We look forward to hearing from you and later on helping you.