A misdiagnosis after a doctor declined to order testing

Attorney Answer

A misdiagnosis is only actionable in Georgia if the care fell below the professional standard and that failure caused harm.

Georgia defines the claim broadly. O.C.G.A. § 9-3-70 reaches care “rendered by a person authorized by law to perform such service” and, separately, care rendered by a hospital, clinic or institution or its employees. The duty itself is in O.C.G.A. § 51-1-27:

A person professing to practice surgery or the administering of medicine for compensation must bring to the exercise of his profession a reasonable degree of care and skill. Any injury resulting from a want of such care and skill shall be a tort for which a recovery may be had.

A bad outcome is not enough by itself. The claim is that the care fell below what a reasonably careful practitioner would have provided, and that the shortfall caused the harm — which in Georgia ordinarily needs an expert to say so.

A refusal to order testing is judged the same way: not by whether a test would have been reassuring, but by whether a reasonably careful practitioner in the same circumstances would have ordered it. The causation half is where these claims most often fail — it is not enough that the diagnosis was wrong; the delay or error has to have made the outcome worse.

Distress alone is difficult to recover for in Georgia without an accompanying physical injury. That does not mean the experience does not matter, but it changes what a claim would be built on.

What you can do

1. Request your complete medical records from every provider involved, including the notes and any test orders. 2. Write down the dates: when you first raised the symptom, what you asked for, and what you were told. 3. Get the condition properly diagnosed and treated now — that record is also the evidence. 4. Consider a licensing-board complaint separately if the concern is how you were treated rather than the outcome. 5. Speak to a Georgia medical malpractice attorney, who can have the records reviewed by an expert.

⏱ Time limits apply. O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71 gives two years from the injury AND cuts off any medical malpractice action five years after the act or omission, whichever arrives first. The five-year limit is a statute of repose, so it can end a claim before the two years have even run.

A Georgia attorney can tell you quickly how the facts here line up, and most will look at a matter like this at no cost.