Errors That Lead to Heart Attack Misdiagnosis

Published on February 18, 2025

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), heart disease remains a leading cause of death in the United States with 702,880 deaths in a single recent year. Still, despite the alarming statistics, medical providers miss a startling number of heart attack diagnoses in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, resulting in adverse outcomes including worsened medical conditions, lengthier recovery times, increased expenses, or sometimes wrongful death.

Symptoms of Heart Attacks

The symptoms of a heart attack often vary between men and women, leading to an increase in misdiagnosed heart attacks in women. Common symptoms of heart attacks include:

• Chest pain or discomfort
• A feeling of pressure, tightness, or squeezing in the chest
• Pain that radiates into the arm
• Pain in the upper body, including the arms, neck, jaw, upper back, or abdomen
• Shortness of breath
• Cold sweats
• Irregular or rapid heartbeat
• Lightheadedness
• Unusual tiredness
• Nausea or vomiting
• Feelings of anxiety or panic

Heart attacks without pain or pressure in the chest or radiating arm pain are more common for women.

What Leads to a Heart Attack Misdiagnosis?

When a person suspects they are having a heart attack or experiences chest pain or pressure, they typically go to an emergency room, urgent care center, or to a trusted family physician. Most heart attack misdiagnoses occur in these settings. Factors that sometimes contribute to a misdiagnosis, missed diagnosis, or delayed diagnosis of a heart attack include the following:

• A provider fails to take a complete medical history
• Failure to recognize heart attack symptoms (most common in female patients)
• Making an incomplete medical assessment
• Failing to recognize heart attack symptoms in otherwise healthy people including those younger than typical heart attack victims and women
• Failing to order proper diagnostic testing
• Failing to consult with a cardiologist
• Lab or EKG errors
• Incorrectly interpreting lab or EKG results

Any of the above common causes of heart attack misdiagnoses result directly from a medical provider’s failure to adhere to the accepted standards of the medical community.

Who Is Commonly Responsible for a Heart Attack Misdiagnosis?

It often takes a thorough investigation to determine the liable party in a heart attack misdiagnosis medical malpractice claim. Depending on how or where the failure occurred, the following individuals or entities could be liable for the damages to a victim or their surviving family members:

• An emergency room physician
• The triage nurses
• A consulting physician
• The consulting cardiologist
• An intern or medical student
• A family doctor
• A physician at an urgent care center
• A physician’s assistant
• The manufacturer of defective medical equipment, such as EKG
• A lab that produced inaccurate lab results

Most commonly, a doctor has the primary responsibility for accurately and promptly diagnosing a heart attack by thoroughly assessing the patient, ordering the correct tests, and correctly interpreting test results.

How Does a Missed Heart Attack Diagnosis Impact a Patient?

Heart attacks occur every 40 seconds in the U.S. with nearly 900,000 annual deaths resulting from heart disease. Despite heart attacks remaining a common medical emergency seen in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, it’s not uncommon for heart attack victims to experience a misdiagnosis during their initial emergency room visit. An accurate assessment with prompt treatment minimizes physical damage to the heart, improves medical outcomes, and saves lives. Left untreated, or a significant delay in properly treating a heart attack results in injury to the cardiac muscle. This may cause disability or death. The misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis of a heart attack may be grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit if a treating physician fails to recognize the symptoms or doesn’t make a prompt diagnosis of a heart attack to initiate proper life-saving treatment. In the worst cases, the outcome of a heart attack misdiagnosis may be wrongful death.

What Should I Do After a Heart Attack Misdiagnosis?

Misdiagnosing a heart attack is egregious medical malpractice. If you or a close family member suffered a worsened medical outcome due to a heart attack misdiagnosis, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and angry. If you think you or your loved one suffered a heart attack misdiagnosis, take the following critical steps:

• First, seek health care with a trusted physician as soon as possible
• Ask for a thorough examination with tests to determine the extent of the damage, and a treatment and recovery plan
• Ask the trusted doctor to make a detailed medical report listing your condition, treatment recommendations, and prognosis
• Ask for a copy of your medical record from the emergency room or other facility where the misdiagnosis occurred
• Keep all medical bills related to the heart attack and your medical treatment
• Consult with an Arizona medical malpractice attorney for a free evaluation of your case.

When a physician makes an error including failing to recognize heart attack symptoms, neglecting to order the correct diagnostic tests, or misinterpreting EKG or lab results, it’s a negligent diagnostic error and medical malpractice.

Proving Liability for a Heart Attack Misdiagnosis

Medical professionals have a duty of care that compels them to adhere to the highest standards of medical diagnosis and proper treatment. Failing to uphold this responsibility can have dire consequences for victims. These consequences are the “damages” in a medical malpractice claim. To recover compensation for damages requires providing compelling proof of liability. The injury victim must show the following through a preponderance of the evidence:

A Doctor-Patient Relationship Existed

A doctor is only liable for damages if they were performing their medical duties on an established patient when they missed the accurate diagnosis. In other words, if an off-duty doctor tells a person experiencing chest pain in a coffee shop that it might be indigestion, they are not liable for damages because no formal doctor-patient relationship exists. However, when a patient sees an on-duty doctor in an emergency room or urgent care center, a doctor-patient relationship exists.

The Medical Provider Owed a Duty of Care to the Patient

Doctors and other medical providers have a duty to their established patients that requires them to treat the patient at the standard of care accepted by the medical community.

A Breach of Duty Occurred

If the medical provider doesn’t treat the patient at the acceptable care standards or the way another, reasonable doctor would have treated them under similar circumstances, then the medical provider breached their legal duty of care to the patient.

Causation

An injury victim must prove that the doctor’s breach of duty directly caused their injury or worsened medical condition.

Damages Resulted From the Breach of Duty

Finally, the injury victim must prove that they suffered damages from the doctor’s misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis of the heart attack, including a worsened medical outcome, additional expenses, or wrongful death.

How Can an Arizona Medical Malpractice Lawyer Help My Case?

If you or a loved one suffered harm because of a doctor’s error that led to a misdiagnosis of a heart attack, you deserve compensation for your damages such as medical expenses, lost earnings, diminished quality of life, and pain and suffering. Call the experienced, trial-ready Phoenix medical malpractice attorneys at Knapp & Roberts for experienced legal counsel and representation in your claim.