If you are a shareholder in a large medical group practice, it is routine for the practice to obtain and keep up your medical malpractice insurance. Your practice insurance needs to only start with medical malpractice insurance that protects your organization and your care-giving staff.
Malpractice Insurance
There are two kinds of medical malpractice policies available, one is “claims made” insurance and the other “occurrence” insurance.
Claims made insurance pays for claims made during the policy’s term. This means that both the alleged act of malpractice and the filing of the claim must occur while the policy is still in effect. If you drop a claims made policy there is no protection to your practice for any incidents occurring after that date unless you purchase an expensive kind of insurance called “tail coverage.”
Tail coverage is coverage that covers when your claims made policy ends. Sometimes, if your practice purchases new malpractice insurance you can purchase “nose” coverage with the new policy that substitutes for tail coverage.
Occurrence coverage provides a lifetime of coverage for malpractice allegations regardless of when the patient files a claim. During the first 3 to 5 years an occurrence policy is more expensive than a claims made policy but there is no need for tail coverage.
10 Other Insurances for a Large Group Practice
Just as every other business, large practices need business insurance. Types of coverage your large practice needs include:
1. Worker’s compensation insurance for employees injured or who become ill due to work related causes
2. General liability insurance protects your practice from “slip and fall” incidents where the practice is at fault
3. Commercial flood insurance
4. Inland marine insurance can be used for work done offsite
5. Property insurance
6. Director’s and officers liability coverage
7. HIPAA liability insurance
8. Billing errors and omissions coverage
9. Disability insurance to protect the practice if a key income generator becomes disabled
10. Employment practices liability coverage
Many large practices find that when they use a single, trusted insurance adviser, they are happier with their coverage on all their policies and are confident they have covered their bases and saved money.
Here at the Joseph A. Britton Agency, we are experts in healthcare liability coverage. We can help you choose the right combinations of insurance for your medical practice. Give us a call today at (800) 462-3401.