Embodiments provide a system and method for medical record error detection. Using a cognitive system having natural language processing capabilities, the error detection system can analyze a corpus of medical records, which can correspond to a particular patient, as well as a new medical record, and parse each into one or more record elements. By comparing the record elements, the error detection system can detect one or more potential errors resulting from a record element in the new medical record being inconsistent or contradictory with the record elements in the prior medical records, or ambiguous. The error detection system can output a list of candidate answers for correcting the one or more potential errors based upon a cognitive analysis of the corpus of medical records. The error detection system can further output a list of suggested therapies based on the selection of one or more of the candidate answers.