7 Costly Mistakes Physicians Make When Choosing Medical Malpractice Insurance

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Medical Malpractice Insurance
We’ve worked with hundreds of physicians and understand that for them, obtaining medical malpractice insurance can be a burdensome task that neither you nor your staff are ever ready to handle.  Let’s face it, insurance coverage is not a desirable thing to shop for, but it is a “must have” for you that will protect your practice and your assets.  But it can be costly.  So, how do you decide what coverage and premium is right for you?

We know physicians sometimes accept medical malpractice insurance coverage from an insurance company, just because it offers the lowest premium.  After all, budgets are tight and, most of the time, they don’t think they will experience a claim. However, even though they choose coverage with the lowest premium, will this medical malpractice insurance coverage provide premium savings over time and cover them properly?

Throughout our experience, we have learned a lot after seeing insurance companies come and go in the market place.  The differences between them are significant and require an astute physician and practice manager to examine them carefully and figure out what’s right for them.  These differences include:

  • Coverage
  • Defense
  • Longevity
  • Financial stability
  • Overall premium

So, how do you know what’s right for you based on your budget and practice needs?

Insurance applications can be tedious to complete and we have found that many physicians skip questions and the remarks section due to lack of time and desire.  We know that underwriters review applications objectively by looking for the few pieces of information that would allow them to provide a quote.  But, what if there were a way to have the underwriter review your documents on a more personal and subjective manner where your quote is based on additional information you provide and specifically for your needs?

We decided to develop the “7 Costly Mistakes Physicians Make When Choosing Medical Malpractice Insurance and How to Prevent Them” free guide as a tool to help physicians and practice managers make better decisions when buying malpractice insurance coverage.  The information provided will show you how to select provide the right, cost effective coverage for your needs.

 

 

Disruptive Technologies in Healthcare

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Disruptive Technologies

According to Investopedia, Disruptive Technologies are described as:

A technology that significantly alters the way that businesses operate. A disruptive technology may force companies to alter the way that they approach their business, risk losing market share or risk becoming irrelevant. Recent examples of disruptive technologies include smart phones and the e-commerce retailing.

We are excited to share our discovery of the The Business of Healthcare radio show, provided by Wharton Health Care and brought to you weekly by Sirius XM Channel 111.

Next Session – Tuesday, July 12th at 12:00 pm EST for their session on Disruptive Technologies in Healthcare

Join host Jeff Voigt, MBA, MPH. Jeff is Principal of Medical Device Consultants of Ridgewood, LLC, a firm dedicated to helping early stage medical technology companies with reimbursement with a focus on identifying value through cost-effectiveness analysis.

Scheduled panelists include:

We look forward to learning about ways new disruptive technologies will improve healthcare.  We’ll be listening and hope you will be too!

 

Why Avoid a Rubber Stamp Renewal?

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Rubber Stamp Renewal

Sometimes prospective new clients, who are approaching their medical malpractice insurance expiration date, find it easier to  just take the rubber stamp approach and renew the same old insurance policy for the new year.  After all, everyone is busy and this “rubber stamp renewal” approach might seem a good way to save time.  But, as in the poem below by Robert Frost, maybe it would be better to take the road less traveled?
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How to Find Malpractice Savings Mid-Term

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We are currently working with two physicians who have had significant changes in their practice since their medical malpractice coverage renewed earlier this year. An opportunity arose for one physician to work for a larger organization that would pay for her malpractice insurance. The other physician decided to perform a new type of procedure that his current policy would exclude. In these two cases, we are re-marketing their coverages and are even working on providing malpractice savings at the same time.

Malpractice Savings

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Telemedicine Malpractice Risks

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Telemedicine Policy

Earlier this summer the AMA adopted an eight guideline policy motivated to improve access to care for patients using telemedicine. You can find the AMA Telemedicine policy here.

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Giving Little Unexpected Extras – II

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In this week’s blog, we’d like to continue our GLUE Customer Experience series and provide our five remaining items.  As you recall from our last blog, GLUE stands for Giving Little Unexpected Extras.  We believe that no matter how small the cost or effort, just giving a little something extra will go a long way in assuring your patients that you are part of their care team. Here are the final five ideas for you.
 
Giving Little Unexpected Extras
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How to Participate in Healthcare Tweet Chats

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In our previous blog on 3 Benefits of Healthcare Tweet Chats, we introduced Symplur, a company that organizes and tracks healthcare hashtags, tweet chats and conferences.  You can find a current schedule of tweet chats here.  Take a look around and, if any healthcare chats interest you, then this blog is for you.

#HCLDR (1)

Tweet chats typically have two to three people that moderate each session.  For some, like #HCLDR (Healthcare Leader), the moderators create a pre-tweet chat blog that provides details, such as topic discussion, questions to be discussed and resource links on the topic. I personally have found these blogs helpful and I appreciate the hard work and time the moderators put into writing them.

And so, here is a shout out to Colin Hung @Colin_Hung, Bernadette Keefe, MD @nxtstop1 and Joe Babaian @JoeBabaian.

To get the most of healthcare tweet chats, we recommend you: Read more

Why You Should Care About Patient Communication

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Patient Communication

Communication – My Story

In my work in providing medical malpractice insurance, I send emails or letters that give instructions to doctors and practice managers on our renewal process. Often there are application forms, additional documents required, and payments that may need to be sent to various locations.   Unfortunately, when I receive information back, it is not complete, there are missing documents, and/or payments are sent to the wrong address. I often wonder, “Am I not making this clear?” Read more

policy comparison

Medical Malpractice Policy Comparison

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policy comparison

Why Perform a Policy Comparison?

Each year, physicians will either obtain new medical malpractice insurance coverage or renew their current policy. Sometimes it can be an easy renewal of the current coverage when a doctor is placed with a financially stable company that provides excellent coverage and pricing. Other times, however, physicians need to evaluate their current practice and review a policy comparison so they can be sure they purchase the right coverage at the right premium for their needs.
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6 Benefits of Using Social Media in Your Medical Practice

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Social Media

Jennifer Joe, MD

The other day, I had the pleasure of participating in the Massachusetts Medical Society Annual Physician Practice Resource Center (PPRC) talk.

I intentionally attended because I was excited to hear Jennifer Joe, MD, speak on Implementing Social Media in the Medical Practice, a topic for which I have a strong interest. Doctor Joe works in the Emergency and Urgent Care Departments of the Boston VA and is also CEO of Medstro, a physician and medical student community. She is passionate about technology advances and their uses in health care.

In her presentation, Doctor Joe discussed the following six benefits of using social media in the medical practice:  Read more