Last Updated: August 24, 2026
Ohio sets a one-year limitations period for medical claims and caps every claim with an absolute four-year statute of repose. The one-year clock starts at the later of the cognizable event or the end of the treatment relationship, and a 180-day notice letter can extend it.
Two changes since 2023 altered how those deadlines operate without moving either period. The Ohio Supreme Court extended the repose statute to wrongful death claims in December 2023, and a 2024 amendment removed absent-defendant tolling from the repose period.
Accrual, repose, tolling, the notice procedure, and wrongful-death timing each carry separate proof requirements. Deadlines differ across other jurisdictions.
How Long Do Patients Have to File a Medical Claim in Ohio?
Section 2305.113(A) of the Ohio Revised Code (R.C.) requires that "an action upon a medical, dental, optometric, or chiropractic claim shall be commenced within one year after the cause of action accrued." The current version took effect October 3, 2023, through House Bill 33, and neither the one-year period nor the four-year repose period has been amended since. The statute reaches those four claim types only.
Five distinct deadlines can apply to the same set of facts.
Provisions current as of August 2026.
Only the first three are calendared at intake. The two division (D) windows surface later, usually once a records review establishes that the injury could not reasonably have been found earlier, and R.C. 2305.113(D)(3) puts the affirmative burden of proving that timeline on the claimant by clear and convincing evidence. Missing the earliest applicable date ends the claim no matter how much time the others appear to leave.
The Four-Year Statute of Repose Under R.C. 2305.113(C)
R.C. 2305.113(C)(1) bars any medical claim commenced "more than four years after the occurrence of the act or omission constituting the alleged basis" of the claim. The repose clock runs from the negligent act itself, while the discovery rule governs only the one-year period. It is an absolute bar, subject to the division (D) exceptions and to tolling under R.C. 2305.16 for claimants who were minors or of unsound mind when the claim accrued.
In Antoon v. Cleveland Clinic Found., 148 Ohio St.3d 483, 2016-Ohio-7432, the Ohio Supreme Court held that R.C. 2305.113(C) "is a true statute of repose that applies to both vested and nonvested claims," upholding the provision even where it extinguishes a claim that has already vested. The court also rejected the theory that filing and voluntarily dismissing a complaint suspends the repose period: "Once a complaint has been dismissed without prejudice, legally, that action is deemed to never have existed."
The statute builds in one accommodation for late discovery. Under R.C. 2305.113(D)(1), a claimant whose injury remained undiscoverable within three years of the act, and who discovers it before the four-year period ends, may file within one year of discovery. The three-year threshold does most of the work: an injury a diligent patient could have found in year two gets no extension at all.
How the Discovery Rule Determines When a Claim Accrues
R.C. 2305.113(A) starts the one-year clock at accrual but never defines the term; Ohio case law supplies the standard. In Oliver v. Kaiser Community Health Found., 5 Ohio St.3d 111 (1983), the Ohio Supreme Court held that a malpractice claim accrues when the patient discovers, or with reasonable care and diligence should have discovered, the resulting injury.
Allenius v. Thomas, 42 Ohio St.3d 131 (1989), refined that rule into the cognizable-event standard: accrual requires "a 'cognizable event' which does or should lead the patient to believe that the condition of which the patient complains is related to a medical procedure, treatment or diagnosis previously rendered." Ohio courts apply a three-part inquiry:
- When did the injured party become aware, or when should the party have become aware, of the extent and seriousness of the condition?
- Was the injured party aware, or should the party have been aware, that the condition related to a specific medical service previously rendered?
- Would the condition put a reasonable person on notice of the need to inquire further into its cause?
Frysinger v. Leech, 32 Ohio St.3d 38 (1987), adds a second trigger: accrual occurs at the later of the cognizable event or the termination of the physician-patient relationship for the condition at issue. Ongoing treatment for the same condition can therefore hold the deadline open, and Wilson v. Durrani, 164 Ohio St.3d 419, 2020-Ohio-6827, confirmed this remains the controlling standard.
Flowers v. Walker, 63 Ohio St.3d 546 (1992), shows how little a patient must know. The court held that "constructive knowledge of facts, rather than actual knowledge of their legal significance, is enough to start the statute of limitations running under the discovery rule." The cognizable event itself puts the plaintiff on notice to investigate, so the deadline runs even where the practitioner's identity or the full extent of the injury surfaces later.
Because the accrual date turns on dated entries scattered across the treatment record, a medical chronology that sequences those entries supplies the evidence needed to defend the chosen accrual date.
Tolling and Extension Provisions for Ohio Medical Claims
Ohio law tolls or extends these deadlines for a defined set of claimants and facts, each with its own proof requirements.
Provisions current as of August 2026.
The final column carries the practical weight. A provision that rescues a late filing under the one-year period may do nothing once four years have run from the act, and the absent-defendant route stopped reaching the repose period in October 2024.
Foreign Objects Left in the Body
R.C. 2305.113(D)(2) permits a claimant to file "not later than one year after the person discovered the foreign object or not later than one year after the person, with reasonable care and diligence, should have discovered the foreign object." The exception operates even after the four-year repose period expires.
The one-year window is unforgiving once discovery occurs. In Bierly v. Kettering Health Network, 2024-Ohio-3326 (2d Dist.), the claimant discovered a retained lap sponge in March 2022, decades after cesarean sections in 1984 and 1987; her one-year window closed in March 2023, and an August 2023 filing was barred. Bierly also held that the 180-day notice letter does not stretch the foreign-object deadline. Objects intentionally left in the body for sound medical reasons fall outside the exception under Melnyk v. Cleveland Clinic, 32 Ohio St.2d 198 (1972).
Claimants Who Are Minors
R.C. 2305.16 tolls the deadlines for a claimant who is a minor when the cause of action accrues; the periods run once the disability is removed at age 18 or, if earlier, by court-declared emancipation. Minority tolling suspends the repose clock rather than creating a separate window, and R.C. 2305.113(C) expressly excepts persons within the age of minority, a point confirmed in Ruther v. Kaiser, 134 Ohio St.3d 408, 2012-Ohio-5686.
The protection has limits. In McCarthy v. Lee, 2023-Ohio-4696, the Ohio Supreme Court held that minor children's derivative loss-of-consortium claims cannot proceed once the parent's underlying medical claim has been extinguished by the repose period, even though the children's own direct claims were not barred.
Absent Defendants After House Bill 179
A defendant's absence from Ohio now tolls the one-year limitations period only. It stopped reaching the repose clock in late 2024, reversing Elliot v. Durrani, 171 Ohio St.3d 213, 2022-Ohio-4190, which had held that R.C. 2305.15(A) tolled the four-year period during a defendant's absence from the state.
House Bill 179 made that change by amendment. Effective October 24, 2024, R.C. 2305.15(A)(2) provides that absence, absconding, and concealment tolling does not apply to statutes of repose, listing divisions (C) and (D) of R.C. 2305.113 among them. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the tolling statute as applied to a physician who left Ohio in Kennedy v. W. Res. Senior Care, 2024-Ohio-5565.
The 180-Day Notice Letter Under R.C. 2305.113(B)
R.C. 2305.113(B)(1) lets a claimant who gives timely written notice that the claimant "is considering bringing an action upon that claim" commence suit within 180 days after the notice is given. Ohio appellate districts currently disagree on when that period starts, and the delivery requirements are strict either way.
When the 180 days begin is now contested. Edens v. Barberton Area Family Practice Ctr., 43 Ohio St.3d 176 (1989), interpreted the predecessor statute to require actual receipt, starting the period on the date the notice was received. The Fourth District applied that rule in Estate of Altizer v. Arbors at Gallipolis, 2026-Ohio-369, holding that a notice delivered after the one-year period expires produces no extension.
The Fifth District reached the opposite result three months later. In Webb v. Morning View Delaware, Inc., 2026-Ohio-2441, decided June 25, 2026, the court reversed a trial court that had started the extension on the date of receipt, reasoning that R.C. 2305.113 is remedial and must be construed to let the plaintiff litigate on the merits. Counsel should confirm which rule the filing district follows and calendar to the earlier date.
Delivery method is settled. The Eighth District held in Francis v. Cleveland Clinic Found., 2026-Ohio-829, that email notice is insufficient under R.C. 2305.113(B)(1).
Since October 3, 2023, R.C. 2305.113(B)(2) requires delivery by certified mail, return receipt requested, to one or more of:
- The provider's residence
- The provider's professional practice
- The provider's employer
- The business address on file with the state medical board or other agency that issued the provider's license
The extension applies separately to each defendant, and a claimant may send more than one timely letter; under Marshall v. Ortega, 87 Ohio St.3d 522 (2000), the 180 days run from the last qualifying notice. A letter that also invites settlement remains valid under Szwarga v. Riverside Methodist Hosp., 2014-Ohio-4943 (10th Dist.), so the notice can coexist with an early demand letter strategy.
Wrongful Death Deadlines in Ohio Medical Malpractice Cases
R.C. 2125.02(F)(1) requires that "a civil action for wrongful death shall be commenced within two years after the decedent's death," placing the wrongful death limitations period in a different chapter of the code. For deaths caused by medical care, that two-year rule is only half the analysis.
In Everhart v. Coshocton Cty. Mem. Hosp., 2023-Ohio-4670, decided December 28, 2023 by a 4-3 vote, the Ohio Supreme Court held that wrongful-death claims based on medical care are "medical claims" under R.C. 2305.113(E)(3) and are therefore subject to the four-year statute of repose. The decision resolved a conflict among the First, Sixth, and Tenth Districts, which had held the repose period inapplicable to wrongful-death claims.
Everhart also unsettled the limitations period itself. The court observed that its earlier decisions applying the two-year wrongful-death period to medical claims are no longer good law and that it has never decided whether the one-year period in R.C. 2305.113(A) governs wrongful-death claims based on medical care. Webb raised that question in 2026 without resolving it.
A wrongful-death suit filed within two years of the death can therefore still be barred when the negligent act occurred more than four years before filing. Absent a statutory exception such as minority tolling or a retained foreign object, a patient who dies five years after an undetected surgical error leaves the estate with no medical wrongful-death claim.
Provisions current as of August 2026.
Characterization therefore decides the deadline before the merits are ever reached. A fall in a hospital corridor sits in the second row with no repose ceiling; the same fall during a transfer performed by clinical staff sits in the first row and can be extinguished four years after the incident. Because R.C. 2305.113(E)(3) defines "medical claim" broadly, the classification usually favors the shorter track, and estates should account for the lead time involved in obtaining a deceased patient's records before the two-year window closes.
Applying Ohio's Filing Deadlines in Practice
Ohio's one-year limitations period runs from a fact-bound accrual date, sits under a four-year repose ceiling that now reaches wrongful-death and derivative claims, and can be extended only through the enumerated statutory routes. Deadline analysis requires separate calendars for accrual, repose, notice, and death.
Every one of those calendars is built from dated entries in the treatment record. Organized chronologies and timely medical record retrieval determine how early counsel can fix an accrual date, identify the last date of treatment for the condition, and confirm whether a claim sits inside the repose period.
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