Medical Misdiagnosis and Social Security Disability Benefits

[jennifere83]

My mother has been receiving social security and disability since 2005 after being diagnosed with scleroderma and osteoarthritis, after years of blood tests and medication the doctor now realized they misdiagnosed her. She spoke with our local social security office and the lady she spoke with said she had never heard of a case like this but thought my mother would be responsible for paying back the $8000.00 a year she had been receiving and should get an attourney. Is my mother responsible for paying this back???

[flyingron]

Well the next question is what DOES she have? Presumably she had symptoms bad enough to consider the misdiagnoses disabling.

[jennifere83]

Well the next question is what DOES she have? Presumably she had symptoms bad enough to consider the misdiagnoses disabling.

her doctor told her she just has arthritis in her hands and took her off the medications that were prescribed.

[Mr. Knowitall]

In terms of the Social Security benefits, your mother was either disabled or she was not. The diagnosis can help with that determination, but putting the wrong label on a disabling condition does not make it any less disabling.

If you are telling us that your mother was not disabled, but used a misdiagnosis to obtain benefits to which she was not entitled, that's not the fault of her doctors. If you're telling us that your mother was disabled, but that a change in her diagnosis puts her benefits in jeopardy and might even require her to pay back benefits she's previously received, she should be thinking about getting a proper diagnosis for her disabling condition.

You didn't post this in the medical malpractice forum, but you seem to be wondering if your mom can sue her doctors for malpractice. So far you have not given us any indication that she suffered any physical or economic harm from the misdiagnosis, or that the doctors did not provide a reasonable diagnosis under the governing standard of care. If the doctors acted within the standard of care, there's no malpractice. If your mother did not suffer any economic or non-economic injury, there's no case for malpractice as damages are a necessary element of any malpractice action.