Being self-employed is something plenty of people dream of. It means that you’re your own boss and you do the work you want to. You can manage your work-life balance and choose your projects.
However, it also means that you’re less protected than your peers with permanent employment contracts. So after suffering a problem like medical negligence, you could be left worrying about how you’re going to pay the bills.
Effects of medical negligence
There are few experiences more upsetting than medical negligence. The healthcare professionals you relied on to help you get past a medical condition proved to be undeserving of the trust you placed in them, leaving you worse off than you started out.
When you’re self-employed, this becomes an even more stressful situation. You can’t typically afford to take time off when you work for yourself. Letting your clients down becomes a real concern. So does missing out on contracts and other opportunities.
Depending on the severity of the injury you suffered after your experience of medical negligence, you may find that you’re unable to work for a long period. This will have huge financial implications. When you’re self-employed, not working means trouble paying the bills.
Insurance as a fall-back
When you work for yourself and don’t have the security of sick leave or assistance from your employer, you have to look after yourself. You can do this by investigating certain insurance policies that will help cover you in a situation where you can’t work.
Depending on which country you live and work in, you’ll have different options for this level of coverage. In many cases, accessing these insurance policy pay outs will be quicker – and often more straightforward – than accessing government unemployment benefits.
It’s worth carefully examining these policies for any restrictions. You don’t want to rely on a policy if it won’t actually cover you in the event of illness caused by medical negligence. So remember to always read the fine print.
Take legal action
When medical negligence – also known as medical malpractice – is the reason you can’t work, you could be able to sue the healthcare provider responsible. This has benefits that reach further than keeping you afloat at a difficult time.
You may end up with an injury or illness that’s going to require you to make major changes to your lifestyle. You may have to modify your home to ensure you can get around or install certain aids to your vehicle to be able to keep driving it. Compensation for a medical negligence case could help you pay for these additions.
Taking legal action also means that the healthcare provider – whether that’s a hospital or doctor – can address what went wrong in your treatment. And this can help them put in place the right measures to help stop it happening to anyone else. So although you may not initially think so, taking legal action can mean that no one else has to go through what you’ve been through.
