Negligent dental care means that the dentist unintentionally or intentionally did something that no other reasonable and prudent dentist would have done under the same circumstances and you were injured because of it. The injury may be monetary (such as having to pay for further surgeries or treatment), physical, or both.

Examples of negligent dental care include failure to diagnose or treat serious oral disease, injury due to dental work, or failure to obtain informed consent for all of the dental care provided. Negligent dental care does not include dental care that was simply unsuccessful or yielded unexpected results. Dentists, like doctors, can’t guarantee specific results. But dentists are held to a very high standard of care, and if they breach that standard of care then you may be entitled to compensation.

In order to have a successful dental malpractice claim, the dentist’s actions must be the proximate cause of your injuries. That means that what the dentist did or did not do directly caused your injury, and no other possible cause occurred between the dentist’s actions and your injury. For example, if you become sick because you did not follow the dentist’s instructions after a procedure (whether that procedure was performed negligently or not), your failure to follow the instructions might preclude you from compensation, or your compensation may be decreased.

Injuries to Look For:

The injuries below are usually indicative of negligent dental care. These are not all the possible injuries that could result from negligent dental care, nor are these injuries only caused by dental negligence. However, if you have experienced one of the following injuries and believe it may have been the result of dental malpractice, you should contact an attorney immediately:

• Temporary or permanent numbness in the lips, tongue, jaw or chin
• Loss of sense of taste
• Injury or death during oral surgery, including injury or death caused by anesthesia
• Failure to diagnose or treat oral cancers, gum disease, or any other oral disease
• Injury or infection causing the loss of teeth
• Infection of the tongue, gums, jaw, or teeth
• Improper or needless extraction of teeth