When Does a Misdiagnosis or Delayed Diagnosis Become Medical Malpractice?
Doctors get diagnoses wrong more often than most patients realize, but a mistake alone does not make a malpractice case. In Colorado, a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis becomes medical malpractice when the provider fell below the accepted standard of care and that failure changed your outcome, and proving it takes expert testimony and a filing process with its own strict rules. This post walks through when a diagnostic error crosses that line, what has to be proven, and the deadlines that apply. A Denver medical malpractice lawyer at Boesen Law can review your records and tell you whether you have a claim.
How Common Diagnostic Errors Are
Diagnostic errors are a recognized patient safety problem, not a rare event. The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality notes that an AHRQ-funded study estimated that 795,000 Americans become permanently disabled or die each year because of misdiagnosed disease. The conditions most often missed include strokes, heart attacks, infections such as sepsis, and cancers.
Behind those numbers are patients who were sent home from the emergency room, told their symptoms were stress, or left waiting months for a test that should have been ordered on the first visit. Boesen Law represents people in exactly those situations.
For answers to your questions, call:
(303) 999-9999
When a Misdiagnosis Becomes Malpractice
Not every wrong diagnosis is negligent. Medicine involves judgment, and some conditions are hard to identify even with good care. A diagnostic error becomes malpractice when four things are true.
- A doctor-patient relationship existed. The provider took on responsibility for your care.
- The provider breached the standard of care. A reasonably careful provider in the same specialty, facing the same symptoms and history, would have reached the right diagnosis or ordered the tests that would have found it.
- The breach caused harm. The delay or error made your condition worse, required more aggressive treatment, or cost you a chance at a better outcome.
- You suffered damages. Medical bills, lost income, pain, a shortened life expectancy, or a death in the family.
Causation is often the hardest element, because the provider will argue the outcome would have been the same either way. The legal concept of proximate cause is where many diagnostic error cases are won or lost.
Common Ways Diagnoses Go Wrong
- Failure to order the right test when symptoms called for imaging, bloodwork, or a biopsy.
- Misreading results, such as a radiologist missing a mass on a scan.
- Failing to follow up on an abnormal result or a pending test.
- Not referring to a specialist when the case required one.
- Anchoring on the first explanation and ignoring new symptoms that pointed elsewhere.
- Missed conditions during pregnancy and delivery, which can lead to a birth injury for the baby and harm to the mother.
Each of these leaves a trail in the medical record, and Boesen Law gathers the complete chart, including test results and the timing of every order, before anyone offers an opinion.
What Colorado Requires Before a Case Moves Forward
Colorado adds procedural steps to malpractice cases that do not apply to most injury claims.
Certificate of Review
Within 60 days after the complaint is served, the plaintiff’s attorney must file a certificate of review stating that a qualified medical expert has reviewed the case and concluded the claim does not lack substantial justification. Without it, the case can be dismissed.
Deadlines
Most medical malpractice claims must be filed within two years from the date the patient knew, or reasonably should have known, about the injury and its cause, and generally no later than three years after the act or omission, with limited exceptions. Diagnostic error cases often turn on when that two-year clock started, which is why an early review matters. These special rules sit on top of Colorado’s general injury deadlines, and the shorter clock usually controls.
Damage Limits
Colorado caps non-economic damages in malpractice cases. House Bill 24-1472 began raising that cap in 2025, phasing the increase in over five years, after which the cap is adjusted for inflation.
Boesen Law handles the expert review and filing requirements from the start so a valid claim is not lost on a technicality.
Jon C. Boesen on Misdiagnosis Claims
Jon C. Boesen, founder of Boesen Law and a Colorado civil litigator for three decades, tells families:
“The question in a misdiagnosis case is not whether the doctor made a mistake. It is whether a careful doctor would have caught it, and whether catching it would have changed what happened to you. That second question is where these cases are decided. We put the timeline in front of independent physicians: what the symptoms were, what was ordered, what was missed, and what treatment would have looked like if the diagnosis had come on time. When that comparison is clear, the case usually is too.”
What Cases Like Yours Have Recovered
Medical negligence cases can lead to significant recoveries when the evidence is built correctly. Boesen Law secured $500,000 for a client whose deep peroneal nerve was damaged by an incorrectly placed nerve block during leg tumor surgery, leaving the client largely wheelchair-bound, and $1,000,000 for a client injured during a routine medical procedure after complex litigation and trial. Our case results include more medical malpractice outcomes.
Contact Boesen Law About a Misdiagnosis
A delayed or missed diagnosis can change a family’s future, and the hospital’s lawyers start protecting the provider the moment a problem surfaces. Our attorneys have secured hundreds of millions of dollars across Colorado, and we listen carefully, fight relentlessly, and work for everything you are owed. Talk to Boesen Law about a free, in-person review of your records, any time of day or night. Our fee is contingent, so your family owes nothing unless we recover money.
FAQs About Misdiagnosis and Delayed Diagnosis Malpractice
Does misdiagnosis constitute malpractice?
Sometimes. A misdiagnosis is malpractice when the provider failed to meet the standard of care and that failure caused harm. If a reasonably careful provider would also have missed the condition, or if the error did not change your outcome, there is usually no claim.
Is delayed diagnosis medical malpractice?
It can be. A delay that allowed a condition to progress, such as a cancer moving to a later stage or an infection turning into sepsis, can support a claim if a careful provider would have diagnosed it sooner. Expert testimony is needed to show what difference the timing made.
Can I sue for medical negligence for a misdiagnosis?
Yes, if you can prove duty, breach, causation, and damages, and if the case is filed within Colorado’s deadlines with a certificate of review. Civil cases are decided on the burden of proof known as a preponderance of the evidence, which means more likely than not.
What four things must be proven to win a medical malpractice suit?
A doctor-patient relationship, a breach of the standard of care, causation linking the breach to your harm, and damages. All four must be supported by evidence, and the standard of care and causation almost always require testimony from a qualified medical expert.
Call (303) 999-9999 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form
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