Most patients who had a serious infection after an endoscopic procedure don't know they may have a case. This page walks you through the simple 3-part test we use when someone calls us — so you can see for yourself, in about 2 minutes, whether a free case review is worth a phone call.
You don't need to know what brand of scope was used. You don't need to remember the exact date. And you don't have to decide anything today. Just read through the checklist below.
If you can check all three of the boxes below, a free case review is worth 15 minutes of your time. You don't have to be 100% sure — close is close enough at this stage.
This includes ERCP, colonoscopy, upper endoscopy (EGD), bronchoscopy, cystoscopy, and other procedures that use a reusable flexible scope. It does not matter which hospital or surgery center performed it, or whether you were told what kind of scope was used.
See the full list on the affected procedures page.
"Serious" usually means you needed hospital care, IV antibiotics, or were diagnosed with sepsis, bacteremia, cholangitis, or an unexplained bloodstream infection. The infection often appears 3 to 30 days after the procedure, not the same day.
See the full list of warning signs on the infection symptoms page.
The contamination crisis goes back to 2012, when the first known outbreak was reported at a hospital in the Netherlands. The FDA's actions continued through 2025. If your procedure was any time in this window, the timing fits.
See the full timeline of what Olympus and the FDA knew.
Any serious infection after an endoscopic procedure is worth a look. But certain pathogens come up again and again in documented scope-infection cases. If your culture report mentioned any of these, the picture gets clearer fast.
If you don't know what pathogen was identified — or if you were never told — the culture results are in your hospital records, and we will request them for you as part of the review.
You don't need any of these to call us — most patients show up with nothing but a hospital bracelet and a story. But if any of these are easy to pull together, they speed up the review.
The procedure report, operative note, or discharge summary from the day of the endoscopy. Shows date, location, physician, and sometimes the specific scope model.
Lab reports from blood, urine, sputum, or wound cultures identifying the pathogen and its antibiotic sensitivity pattern.
Admission records, ICU stays, IV antibiotic courses, and follow-up care from the infection.
Anything that shows the financial cost — hospital bills, co-pays, prescription costs, home health bills.
Time missed from work, short-term disability claims, or lost self-employment income. All part of the harm the infection caused.
A simple note with the date of the procedure, the date symptoms started, and the date you were hospitalized. A one-page summary helps more than you'd think.
If you don't have any of this handy, don't worry — we request hospital and billing records directly from the facility as part of the free review. You don't have to track anything down yourself.
The form takes about 2 minutes. You'll tell us the procedure date, the hospital, and what happened afterward. It does not ask for any medical records or billing information.
One of our intake attorneys calls you to get the full story. The conversation is confidential and typically takes about 15 minutes. We don't rush, and there are no dumb questions.
With your signed authorization, we request the hospital procedure records, culture results, and discharge summaries. We take care of the paperwork, the phone calls, and any fees. You don't spend a dollar.
Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D. — a physician who is also a licensed attorney — reviews your records. He looks at the procedure details, the scope involved, the infection timeline, and the pathogen identified. He decides whether the medical evidence supports a scope-contamination case.
After the review, we come back to you with a plain-English answer: yes we can help, no we can't, or here's what else we'd need to know. If the answer is yes and you want to move forward, we represent you on a contingency fee. No Fees Unless We Recover Money for You.
If the answer is no, you owe us nothing. The review itself is free, period.
The most common questions we hear from patients who aren't sure whether to reach out.
That's actually the norm — hospitals rarely tell patients which scope was used or whether it was later flagged for contamination. The checklist on this page is a starting point, not a final answer. If you can check even part of the test, the free case review will fill in the rest. We pull hospital records, identify the scope, and look at the infection's pathogen and timing. None of that costs you anything.
Possibly not. Every state has a time limit (called a statute of limitations) for filing injury and product liability cases, but the clock often starts on the date a patient discovered — or reasonably should have discovered — that a contaminated scope caused the infection. Many patients were never told the scope was the source, which means the clock may never have started. The only way to know your specific deadline is to let an attorney review your records.
A free case review is a confidential phone conversation plus a records request (which we handle for you) plus a medical-legal review by Herb Borroto, M.D., J.D. We come back to you with a clear yes, no, or maybe — and if the answer is yes, we explain next steps. There is no pressure, no cost, and no obligation to do anything after the review.
Families can bring wrongful-death cases on behalf of a patient who died from a scope-borne infection. The same basic rules apply: the procedure, the infection, and the timing. If you lost someone to a CRE, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas, or similar drug-resistant infection after an endoscopic procedure, it is worth a free case review. We handle these with sensitivity and give families plain answers.
Every factual claim on this page is supported by a verifiable public source. Click any source below to read the original.
If any part of the 3-part test above describes your situation, the next step is simple: free, confidential, about 2 minutes. No Fees Unless We Recover Money for You.
