Blog submitted by Dane Levy Attorney of www.Dentalmal.com, a provider of legal services for those injured by dental malpractice in California
Good oral health is important as it will help you avoid costly and complicated dental procedures. If a dentist does not provide the standard level of care, this can cause serious injuries and sometimes even kill a patient. Dental malpractice looks at dental work that results in dental injuries, failure to diagnose or treat a condition, delays in diagnosis or treatment and intentional misconduct.
For a dental malpractice claim to be successful, the lawyer should be able to prove that the dentist either failed to provide the acceptable standard of care or that they intentionally committed an act that a reasonable oral health care provider would not have committed.
Apart from this, your oral health care provider cannot provide you additional services that you have not provided informed consent. In this case, if the treatment that you received exceeded your consent, you could have a strong case for a dental malpractice lawsuit.
Most dental work cannot be guaranteed, and therefore you cannot sue your dentist just because you are not happy with the results. Dental malpractice attorney Los Angeles will often look at cases that fail to uphold the acceptable standard of care, or when the treatment has exceeded informed consent.
Often dental malpractice cases involve permanent or temporary injuries to a patient. Injuries include numbness of nerves in the lips, chin, tongue, and jaw. Some victims also experience loss of taste and Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMJ). TMJ can include pain in the jaw, and sometimes loss of function of the jaw, making it hard to speak or eat.