West Palm Beach Medical Malpractice Lawyer
You went in for treatment and came out worse, and nobody at the hospital will give you a straight answer about why. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our West Palm Beach personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Palm Beach County since 1993.
Medical Malpractice claims in West Palm Beach
The hospital put its own risk team on it early, and the records you need are held by the people you would be bringing a claim against. Meanwhile you are paying for the care that was supposed to fix the problem, and for the care it now takes to put it right. Finding out what actually happened is our job, and it starts the day you call.
A malpractice claim arising in West Palm Beach may be against a private hospital, a physician group, or the Health Care District of Palm Beach County, which is a public entity and therefore protected by sovereign immunity and its $200,000 and $300,000 caps. Which one it is decides what the claim can be worth before any expert has looked at the chart. Whatever the defendant, the Chapter 766 presuit requirements apply: notice of intent, a corroborating affidavit from an expert in the relevant specialty, and a ninety-day investigation period.
A Palm Beach County medical negligence claim requires the Chapter 766 presuit steps before it can be filed: the complete records, a corroborating written opinion from a physician in the relevant specialty, and 90 days notice to each prospective defendant. The investigation takes months and has to be finished before the notice goes out, so these cases have to be started early rather than near the deadline.
What to do after a medical malpractice in West Palm Beach
- Ask for your complete records, in writing, now. Not the discharge summary and not a portal printout, which is a fraction of the chart. Ask in writing for the complete record: physician and nursing notes, medication administration, vital signs and monitoring, orders, imaging and the reports on it, and laboratory results. You are entitled to it, it is the foundation of any review, and requesting it commits you to nothing.
- Write down the sequence while you still remember it. Who you saw and when, what you told them, what you were told, how long you waited and what changed. Names where you have them. Memory for this fades fast and it fades first for the timings, which is exactly what a review turns on. A family member’s notes made at the bedside are frequently the most useful document in the file.
- Do not sign anything broad. Requests for records are routine and usually fine. Broad authorizations, arbitration agreements and anything resembling a release are not, and they are sometimes presented alongside ordinary paperwork. Bring the document to somebody before signing it. Reading it costs nothing, and an arbitration agreement signed at a bedside can decide the case before it starts.
- Keep getting care, from somebody else if you need to. Nothing about a potential claim requires you to stay with a provider you no longer trust, and nothing about changing doctors damages a claim. What does damage one is a gap in treatment, because it becomes the argument that the harm resolved. Get the problem addressed and let the records of that treatment be made.
- Ask early, because this claim cannot be started late. A medical case cannot simply be filed. The records have to be gathered and reviewed by a qualified physician who is willing to corroborate the claim in writing, and only then does the formal notice go out. That work takes months and costs real money before anything is filed. The practical deadline is therefore a long way ahead of the legal one.
Where these happen in West Palm Beach
Palm Beach County treats an older population than most of the state, which shapes what these claims are about. A great deal of the medicine here is cardiac, orthopedic and oncologic, and a great deal of it happens outside a hospital.
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Cardiac and stroke care
High volume, time-critical medicine, where the negligence is usually a slow decision rather than a wrong one.
- The interval between presentation and the intervention, measurable to the minute from the record
- Symptoms attributed to something else and sent home, which is the most common pattern we see
- Monitoring and telemetry records, which document what was visible to staff and when
- Escalation, and whether anybody with authority to act was actually called
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Orthopedic and elective surgery
A large elective volume in this county, much of it on patients with other conditions already in play.
- Preoperative assessment, and whether the risks a patient already carried were accounted for
- Infection recognition after discharge, which is where the harm frequently sits
- Hardware placement and the imaging taken afterward, which either shows the problem or was never taken
- Anesthesia and post-anesthesia monitoring in centers rather than hospitals
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Imaging read across multiple sites
Radiology in this county is frequently read by a group covering several locations, sometimes remotely, which is where a missed finding tends to happen.
- Comparison with prior studies that were available and not looked at
- Findings noted in a report and never communicated to the patient or the referring physician
- The reading group as a separate defendant from the facility where the scan was taken
- The actual images, which can be read again independently rather than argued about from a report
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Skilled nursing and rehabilitation
The care after a hospital discharge, which is medicine as much as it is a facility question.
- Medication management across prescribers who are not speaking to each other
- Pressure injuries and infections, which are documented daily and are difficult to explain away
- Deterioration that was charted by staff and not escalated to a physician
- Regulator inspection and complaint history for the facility, which is public
What causes them
- Sepsis missed while a patient was in front of somebody, which is the most preventable death in a hospital
- A deteriorating patient whose observations were charted and not escalated to anybody who could act
- Surgery on the wrong site or the wrong side, and instruments or sponges left behind
- Anesthesia errors, including airway management and monitoring during and after a procedure
- Medication and dosing errors, including interactions nobody checked and allergies already in the chart
The injuries we see, and what each one turns on
Sepsis and what it leaves behind
People survive sepsis and are not the same afterward. Amputation, kidney failure requiring dialysis, and a cognitive and physical decline that does not reverse are all common outcomes, and the treatment involved is measured in months. The negligence is usually not a wrong decision but a slow one, which is proved from the timings in the chart.
Surgical injury and the operations that follow it
A perforation, a nerve injury or a failed repair generally means a further operation, sometimes several, and a recovery far longer than the one that was described beforehand. The second surgeon’s records are frequently where the picture becomes clear, because they document what was actually found.
Permanent loss of function
Nerve damage, loss of a limb, loss of sight, incontinence and chronic pain, which change what somebody can work at and how they live rather than simply costing money. These are proved with treating records and with the account of the people who see somebody every day.
What Florida law requires you to prove
The presuit process, in order
A medical negligence suit cannot be filed in Florida until the presuit requirements of Chapter 766 have been met. The records are gathered and reviewed, and a qualified medical expert in the relevant specialty has to provide a verified written opinion corroborating that there are reasonable grounds, under Fla. Stat. § 766.203. Only then does written notice of intent go to each prospective defendant, and under Fla. Stat. § 766.106 no suit may be filed for 90 days after that. The limitations period is tolled during the window, and both sides investigate informally within it.
The deadlines, which run differently here
Medical negligence has its own limitations rules under Fla. Stat. § 95.11: generally two years from when the injury was discovered or should have been discovered with due diligence, and in no event more than four years from the incident itself, with narrow exceptions including concealment and a separate provision for young children. Because the investigation and the corroborating opinion have to be completed before notice can even be sent, the working deadline sits well inside the statutory one.
Two things that surprise people
The modified comparative negligence bar Florida adopted in 2023, which stops anybody more than 50 percent responsible from recovering, expressly does not apply to medical negligence claims under Chapter 766. Separately, Article X, Section 25 of the Florida Constitution gives patients a right of access to records of adverse medical incidents made or received by a health care facility or provider. It is an unusually powerful right, it is underused, and it is one of the first requests we make.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide medical malpractice page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Palm Beach County
These claims are won on timings, and the timings are in documents that no patient receives automatically. Each item below has to be requested specifically.
- The complete chart from every facility and physician group involved
- The actual imaging files rather than the reports written on them, including any prior studies for comparison
- The electronic record audit trail, showing access, timing and anything added after the fact
- Telemetry and monitoring records, which are the clearest evidence of what staff could see and when
- Records of adverse medical incidents, which patients have a constitutional right of access to in Florida
- Results communication records, which decide most delayed diagnosis cases
- Policies, protocols, staffing rosters and assignment sheets for the shift in question
- Regulator inspection and complaint history where a licensed facility was involved
All of it goes to a physician in the relevant specialty for a written review before anything is filed, at the firm’s expense. A firm that has not paid for that review has not evaluated the case, whatever it has told you about it.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in West Palm Beach is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled medical malpractice claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Nearly two decades in Florida courts, including a $3.5 million funeral home negligence verdict. Full profile →
How insurance companies handle these claims
Medical files are not handled by an ordinary adjuster. There is generally a risk manager involved from the day the incident is reported internally, frequently before the patient has any idea something went wrong, and counsel is assigned early.
- The records arrive incomplete
- What comes back to a patient request is frequently the summary layer rather than the chart. Nursing notes, medication administration records, monitoring strips, order histories and the actual imaging files rather than the reports on them all have to be asked for specifically. The electronic record also keeps an audit trail showing who opened what and when, and whether anything was added after the fact, which we can check, and sometimes it is.
- You signed a consent form
- A consent form documents that risks were discussed. It is not a waiver of negligent care and it never has been. Consenting to the recognized risks of an operation is not consenting to it being performed on the wrong side, or to a complication going unrecognized for two days afterward.
- The blame is moved onto the patient
- You did not follow instructions, you missed appointments, your own condition explains the outcome. It is worth knowing that the 50 percent bar which ends ordinary negligence claims does not apply to medical negligence, so this argument reduces a claim rather than ending it. It is answered from the chart, which usually records what the patient was actually told and when.
What a claim can include
Lost income and lost earning capacity
Wages missed, and separately what somebody can no longer earn. Where the injured person is a child, the loss is an entire working life and is calculated by an economist.
Pain, and what daily life has become
What was lost in function, independence and time, proved with treating records and with the account of the people around the injured person.
Life care costs after a catastrophic injury
Attendant care, equipment, home modification, therapy and the replacement schedule for all of it, set out in a life care plan so that it is a number rather than an argument.
Why Wolf & Pravato in West Palm Beach
A Palm Beach County medical negligence case is filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in West Palm Beach, and the firm’s office on Vista Parkway is in the county. These claims run on records requests to institutions here and on a review that has to be paid for months before anything is filed, which is why the first conversation is worth having early.
Board Certification in Civil Trial law is the Bar’s own measure of trial experience, and 861 of Florida’s 109,000-plus lawyers hold it. Richard Pravato has held it since 2004. It is the credential that changes how an adjuster reads a file, because it says the case has somewhere to go if they will not pay it.
Asking costs nothing and there is no fee unless we win. If we look at what happened and think the claim is not worth pursuing, we will say so on the first call instead of signing you up.
West Palm Beach medical malpractice questions
Why do I need a physician’s opinion before I can even file?
Because Florida requires it. A medical negligence suit cannot be filed until a qualified medical expert in the same or a similar specialty has reviewed the records and provided a verified written opinion that there are reasonable grounds. That review costs money and takes time, which is why these cases have to be started well before the deadline rather than near it, and why a firm that has not yet paid for the review has not really assessed the claim.
The insurer says my father’s outcome was just his age and his other conditions.
It is the standard argument in this county and it is answerable. The question is not whether he was frail but whether the care met the standard for a patient in his condition, which is precisely what a treating record documents. It is also worth knowing that the 50 percent comparative fault bar which ends ordinary negligence claims does not apply to medical negligence, so an argument about contribution reduces a claim rather than ending it.
The scan was read somewhere else by a company I never dealt with.
That is common and it does not weaken the claim, though it does add a defendant. A radiology group reading remotely for several sites is a separate entity from the facility where the scan was taken, with its own insurance and its own records. What decides these cases is the images themselves, which can be read again independently, and whether prior studies available for comparison were actually looked at.
The hospital asked me to sign something. Should I?
Not before someone reads it. Requests for records are routine and usually fine, but broad authorizations, arbitration agreements and anything resembling a release are not. Bring the document to us before signing; reading it costs you nothing.
How long do I have to bring a medical malpractice claim in Florida?
Medical negligence runs on its own limitations rules, separate from ordinary negligence, and the presuit notice period tolls them. Because the investigation and expert review have to be completed before notice can even be sent, the practical deadline is much earlier than the statutory one. Ask early rather than assuming you have years.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 2101 Vista Parkway, Suite 4500, West Palm Beach, FL 33411.