Emergency room malpractice claims don’t usually start with “we had a bad outcome.” They start with a pattern—something that didn’t match what should have been done under the circumstances.
Common Madison-area scenarios we see include:
- Triage delays during peak hours: Patients arrive with urgent symptoms, but evaluation or escalation doesn’t happen quickly enough.
- Missed or delayed imaging/labs: When symptoms require timely diagnostics, incomplete testing can lead to missed diagnoses.
- Discharge instructions that don’t fit the risk: A discharge plan may fail to advise about red-flag symptoms or appropriate follow-up.
- Medication and allergy issues: Errors can occur when medication histories aren’t properly reviewed or charting is inconsistent.
- Abnormal result follow-through failures: Sometimes tests come back concerning, but the next step is delayed or not communicated clearly.
If any of these sound familiar, the next question isn’t “was there a bad day?”—it’s whether the care fell below the accepted emergency standard of care and caused measurable harm.


