Every person visited a dentist: some for preventive purposes, and others for the purpose of dental treatment, bite correction, and prosthetics. Anything can happen, and after treatment it may turn out that the services provided by the dentist or orthodontist were of poor quality, and if money was also paid for such services, then somehow it becomes completely sad. What to do if the dentist provided poor-quality services?
ATTENTION : our lawyers for dental disputes in Yekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk region will help you: professionally, on favorable terms and within 24 hours. Call now!
Is the dentist obligated to return money for poor quality treatment?
The dentist, or to be more precise, the organization in which the dentist works, is obliged to return money to the patient for poor-quality dental services, but first it is necessary to prove that the treatment was carried out poorly, i.e. establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the treatment performed by the dentist and the negative consequences that occur.
When presenting demands to a dental organization for a refund of money due to poor quality of services, an individual must refer to the Consumer Protection Law, which regulates such issues.
Requirements must be submitted in writing in the form of a claim outlining all the circumstances, including how the patient established the fact of poor-quality provision of services, for example, a dental x-ray was taken.
Grounds for a dental clinic client to go to court
A dental service may be considered low-quality if it violates the terms of the contract concluded with the client or does not comply with generally accepted standards for the provision of such services. At the same time, a service rendered poorly by a dentist is subject to not only the law “On the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Citizens,” but also the law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” (Federal Law No. 2300-1 of 02/07/1992).
In accordance with the law, a consumer who is faced with poor quality of dental services may demand from the dentist (or clinic):
- free elimination of deficiencies in the services provided;
- repeating the work;
- proportionate reduction in fees;
- reimbursement of expenses in connection with the correction of deficiencies with the involvement of third-party specialists.
The grounds for going to court for poor quality treatment may be:
- erroneous diagnosis;
- improper dental treatment, erroneous actions leading to complications;
- incorrectly prescribed medication;
- infection during treatment;
- removal of a healthy tooth;
- trauma during treatment;
- refusal of admission if there is a need;
- errors in the preparation of medical documents that led to incorrect treatment or harm to the patient’s health.
How to prove a dentist's mistake?
To prove the dentist’s mistake, the patient must have at least some documents that confirm that in a particular dentistry the patient was provided with dental services in the treatment of a specific tooth or other dental services were provided. Sometimes the treatment of a specific tooth is indicated in the receipts that are issued upon payment.
The patient can go to another dentistry and/or have an x-ray taken, which will show the results of the treatment, including shortcomings, for example, the presence of a broken instrument.
You can also contact an expert who will give an opinion on whether the dentist made a mistake when providing services. Obtaining such a conclusion will require certain costs.
ATTENTION : according to Article 86 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation, the expert’s opinion is not mandatory for the court, however, the court can take it into account when assessing it in conjunction with other evidence.
If the patient had a tooth treated in another dentistry, then you should request information from the medical record, as well as request information from the dental record in which the error was made.
Liability for medical malpractice
In 2021, 352 patients died as a result of medical errors, of which 142 were children. The Investigative Committee initiated more than 400 criminal cases. A medical dispute lawyer will help you hold you accountable and recover damages.
Despite the fact that the concept of medical error is not enshrined in Russian legislation, medical organizations bear civil liability, and their employees may be subject to criminal liability. These can be errors of various kinds: diagnostic, technical, pharmaceutical and others.
The right to compensation for moral harm and material damage of the patient is enshrined in Art. 1064-1101 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, as well as in Articles 14-17 of the Law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights”.
Our medical lawyer will help you recover damages for property damage (including material and physical), as well as for moral damage (physical and moral suffering of the patient).
Also, lost earnings and additional expenses incurred due to deterioration of health due to a medical error may be subject to compensation. In particular, special nutrition, constant care, health resort treatment, retraining for another profession due to health conditions, and much more.
Often, medical error is confused with negligence or carelessness; when filing a claim in court, the injured patient cannot correctly describe the harm and the degree of guilt of the doctor, and therefore the court makes a decision not in his favor.
In such a case, to correctly qualify a medical error and determine the amount of damage, the assistance of a medical dispute lawyer is necessary.
How to check the work of a dentist?
When a patient has undergone treatment, but he wants to make sure that the doctor’s work was done efficiently, he can first visually evaluate the work performed using a mirror.
After this, you can take a picture of the tooth that the dentist treated, and with it (with the picture) the patient has the right to go to another dentist, possibly to another organization, which will provide an explanation about the quality of the treatment performed. Of course, it is important that the doctor who looks at the image is qualified.
Before treating a tooth, you can check with the dentist to see how conscientious he is. This need most often arises if a citizen turns to private dentistry, the purpose of which is to make a profit. It cannot be said that all private dentistry deceive their clients, but there are cases when the patient is told that there is caries on almost all teeth, and when a person comes, for example, to a budget dental clinic, it turns out that there is no caries, only darkening of the enamel.
How to punish a dental clinic?
Dentistry can be punished if the services are provided with poor quality, and if such services also lead to harm to health, then in addition to the losses caused to the patient, he will be able to demand compensation for moral damages, and a fine for failure to satisfy his demands on a voluntary basis.
To submit claims, the citizen must have documents confirming that he was treated in a specific clinic, and that the harm to health was caused by the actions of the dentist of this clinic.
The actions of the victim of the services provided may be as follows:
- submitting a written complaint to the dental clinic;
- writing a complaint against the clinic for poor-quality services provided to the territorial body of the federal service for supervision in the field of healthcare, to Rospotrebnadzor, to the prosecutor's office, so that the clinic is inspected;
- If the clinic does not satisfy the demands of the victim, the latter has the right to prepare a claim in court for the recovery of damages, penalties, compensation for moral damage, fines, and legal expenses.
USEFUL : order a dental complaint from our law firm
Help from a patient rights lawyer
In most cases, the need to contact a medical lawyer arises due to poor quality of medical services in the fields of obstetrics, dentistry, gynecology, plastic surgery, and ophthalmology.
A patient who finds himself in such a situation often does not know where and to whom he should turn in order to receive compensation for the harm caused. Medical lawyers of our bureau will be able to help you achieve fair protection of your legal rights and interests.
These disputes are subject to the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Protection of Consumer Rights”, and you, as a consumer who received substandard medical care, have the right to compensation for losses, which includes both the money you spent and the money you spent on correcting the defects , payment of a penalty, compensation for moral damage caused to you, as well as a fine, which is imposed by the court in the amount of 50% of the amount collected by the court. Thus, the recovery is carried out in three times the amount.
A medical dispute lawyer implements a process aimed at protecting the rights of consumers of medical services in the following stages:
– analyzes medical documents, conducts a legal assessment of the prospects of the case;
– selects an expert organization capable of objectively assessing the situation, forms and composes questions posed to the expert;
– draws up a claim, negotiates with honey. institution;
- in case of refusal, honey. the institution from liability for services provided, draws up a statement of claim and submits it to the court;
– represents the client’s interests in court.
We guarantee complete confidentiality to all our clients in all areas of legal practice.
A medical lawyer is a person who is called upon to protect the interests and legal rights of the client: to life, health and quality medical care.
Claim for poor quality dental treatment
In a claim for poor quality dental treatment, the patient must indicate:
- to whom the claim is addressed, i.e. name of the dentistry and its address, you can specify a telephone number and email;
- from whom is the claim, i.e. the patient indicates his full name, address, telephone number, email;
- the name of the document is indicated on a new line in the center - a claim for poor-quality dental treatment;
- The following describes the essence of the current situation, i.e. when the patient turned to dentistry, what contract was concluded, what manipulations were performed by the dentist, what the patient felt before treatment, during treatment and after treatment, what consequences occurred after the services provided, where the patient went, what was established, etc. In order to show that the patient is not just writing a claim, but intends to go all the way until his demands are satisfied, the legality of his demands should be supported by references to the provisions of the law on the protection of consumer rights, which regulates issues related to the protection of consumer rights in poor quality of services;
- in the pleading part of the claim, the victim indicates his requirements, i.e., what the clinic should do in order to somehow restore his rights, for example, return the amount paid for treatment, compensate for losses incurred, pay compensation for moral damage;
- if desired, the patient can attach copies of documents confirming his arguments and requirements, listing them in the application;
- the claim must be signed by the patient.
USEFUL : order a claim for a dental office from our law firm
What can you demand?
Since a patient, when coming to a dental clinic to receive services, becomes a consumer, he can demand compensation for poor-quality services in accordance with the Law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights.”
To begin with, the patient can file a complaint directly with the dental clinic, demanding compensation, properly free treatment, punishment of the doctor or his dismissal due to incompetence. But not everyone can respond positively to such a claim, then you will have to draw up a pre-trial claim, which can include demands for compensation for moral damage, etc.
In order to make serious demands, you need to have strong reasons for it. For example, for the court it will be necessary to conduct an examination to assess the extent of harm caused to the patient’s body by the dentist. Depending on it, the requirement may be:
- Material or in-kind compensation for damage caused by poor quality services;
- Full or partial compensation for moral damage;
- Reimbursement of expenses for dental correction and treatment by another doctor after poor-quality treatment by the first.
How to win a lawsuit against a dentist?
It cannot be said unequivocally that the court will 100% rule in favor of the patient, since circumstances vary, because the plaintiffs’ demands are not always justified, or the plaintiffs may not provide all the necessary evidence. What can help the court make a decision in favor of the plaintiff? And it can help if the plaintiff proves a cause-and-effect relationship between the dentist’s manipulations and the resulting harm to the patient’s health.
To prove the validity of their claims, the patient must have an agreement with the clinic and receipts for payment. The patient can also take pictures of the teeth that were treated, saving these pictures, and receive an expert’s opinion on the quality of the treatment performed.
ATTENTION : dentistry may not take into account the expert’s conclusion and disagree with it, and the court, when considering a case, may, on its own initiative or at the request of one of the parties, order a forensic medical examination.
In addition, the patient has the right to submit a written request to dental clinics, if he has applied to several dentists, to be given copies of his medical records. Clinics will most likely refuse to issue copies of records, but in this case they must issue extracts from such records, which will indicate which teeth were treated and when by which dentist. It is better to obtain such statements in advance.
When the case is heard by the court, it is necessary to file a petition with the court to request medical records from dental clinics.
The totality of these documents, if they confirm that the treatment was carried out poorly, will help to win the case.
Witnesses regarding the circumstances of the case may also be questioned at the court hearing.
