Dental malpractice means bad dental practice. There are very few dental malpractice cases since the dental profession does a good job of caring for patients. Just because your dentist has angered you does not mean that he has done anything wrong. It requires a violation of the standard of care. The standard of care is the way most dentists act in a similar situation. The dentist must do something wrong. Even if some violation of the standard of care happens, what are your damages? What have you lost?
The next issue is, what harm did was caused? The extent of the harm is the reason that a lawyer accepts a dental malpractice case. The more harm done, the greater the settlement and the more the lawyer gets paid. When there is money involved, it gets attention. The dentist's violation of the standard of care must be the clear probable cause of the harm suffered by the patient. If your really mad and have a right to be mad, but you weren't harmed, there's no case.
In all dental malpractice cases, there must be a dental malpractice expert willing to say in public that another dentist has done wrong. This is often where a case breaks down since hiring an expert witness dentist to review dental records and testify in court is expensive. The expert has to be paid and most patients want their lawyers to pay the expert. Keep perspective. If you have suffered small harm and the cost to repair the damage is small, the settlement would be small. Most lawyers are paid on a percentage basis; the lawyer only gets a small percentage of a small settlement and nothing for none! Very few lawyers are interested in this and very few will pay YOUR expenses without any hope of geting their money back.
Dr Padolsky spent many years defending dentists for a major insurance company. Additionally, he has also acted as a dental expert in a number of dental malpractice actions. He enjoys reviewing dental malpractice cases and picking apart the records. He believes this makes him a better dentist. If you would like to consult with a dentist, please email your request. The process almost always involves a preliminary case review before the case is accepted.