When Hospitalist Medicine was first introduced around the early nineties, medical malpractice companies were unsure of how to underwrite, rate and manage the risk.

Over time, by taking chances and using internal medicine rating equivalents, the specialty proved that quality of care was improving and claims were not presenting at the rate anticipated.

Hospital administrators, surgeons in the community, and primary care groups all began to partner with the specialty. The elusive goals of increasing access to care, improving quality and decreasing cost seemed to be achievable, at least in theory. One of the challenges for hospitalist groups was determining how to sustain their business model and how to provide Medical Malpractice Insurance.

This staffing responsibility more closely, if not exactly, resembled emergency medical groups. These groups are committed to providing a medical doctor trained in hospitalist medicine to be physically present at all times at these facilities.

Hospitalists who are contemplating their Medical Malpractice Insurance should consider The Doctors Company (TDC). They have been endorsed by the Society of Hospital Medicine, which brings in partnership with The Doctors Company's  online risk management programs which are easily accessed and completed online, but the major benefit is the unique and innovative structure of their Medical Malpractice Insurance policies. Being underwritten by The Doctors Company can effectively eliminate the high cost of tail, which can inhibit recruitment and create prohibitively expensive administrative costs.

The Doctors Insurance Agency works with 20 different companies to ensure competitiveness. Interstate contractual compliance, active risk management partnership, and managing your malpractice insurance should be a collaborative effort between your Chief Operating Officer, risk manager, clinical managers and administrators. The Doctors Insurance Agency understands the difficulty of keeping pace with hospital contracts and the staffing requirement of having a physician in each location, floor or department 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

There is a common feeling about Hospitalist Medical Groups that they do not form sufficient physician-patient relationships and that as placeholders in the sensitive chain of providing delicate and artful healthcare this would be a way to encourage disappointment, frustration, and mistakes resulting in professional liability claims against hospitalist groups. 

To understand hospitalist medicine, your insurance broker or agent must have experience in the medical professional liability insurance industry.
It is very helpful to have a team of professional liability underwriters who understand how to develop premium according to actual exposure.

Tail Coverage (Extended Reporting Coverage)

Coverage that protects the physician against all claims that arise from professional services performed while the claims-made policy was in effect, but which were reported after the termination of the policy. Some insurers offer this feature free of charge for retiring doctors who meet certain requirements.
The connection between Tail coverage and Hospitalist Medicine

The Doctors’ Insurance Agency and Hospitalist Groups (small, independent hospitalist physicians and larger multi state hospital groups)
Hospitalist groups continue to show amazing growth and mark their place in the health care landscape, the purpose and service provided to hospitals is stable.  The financial results and evolution of the specialty is proof that our health care delivery system is benefitting from this service;
 
As recently as  2005 there were some malpractice insurance companies had not yet learned how to price or manage to underwrite these medical groups.
Hospitalist Medicine Evolves, premiums match the risk

As the sponsored medical malpractice insurance provider of the Society for Hospital Medicine (SHM), The Doctors’ Company can (working with The Doctors’ Insurance Agency) write affordable medical malpractice insurance providers for physicians who still may have a private practice and need coverage for part time ‘independent contractor’ work as a Hospitalist.  

Well, to answer this question I think we have to look at some of the other special I believe that based on our experience ensuring hospitalist groups that they are doing an excellent job of improving their services working with their societies studying claims trends and communicating patient safety and risk management strategies to each individual hospitalist driving in learning and supporting this specialty

The Doctors' Insurance Agency and Hospitalist Liability Insurance:

With the endorsement of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), The Doctors Company continues to lead the medical malpractice insurance industry, creating risk management programs and online resources that make a difference: and creative cost effective insurance concepts for this specialty.

The Doctors' Company Manages Hospitalist Risk.

For years now, The Doctors' Company has partnered with national and local specialty societies and associations to study trends in claims and injury.  Communication is key in this specialty (as it is in almost every specialty).  And, without the partnership of SHM, The Doctors' Company would not learn as much about the specific and unique challenges of this specialty.

Hospitalists’ practices are growing; I’ve written before about the unique methods of rating Hospitalist groups: and, I’m reminded each time I hear the ‘inbox’ ping on my lap top and tablet, as an agent for a digital healthcare liability national organization (O’Brien Insurance Services, Inc..) there are more physicians (trained as Internists) or Primary Care Providers finding work in this area. I see the requests daily (sometimes, literally hourly) for rates, comparisons, premium estimates for in state, out of state, solo, affiliated, large and small group hospitalist practices.  This area of medicine was almost nonexistent years ago when Robert Wachter, M.D. and Lee Goldman, M.D. wrote about it in the New England Journal of Medicine: now, here we are, with medical malpractice carriers (like The Doctors’ Company, Medical Protective, Norcal Mutual, etc. offering ‘stand alone’ independent contractor’s premiums just as if they were on ...

In 1992 an innovative Internal Medicine Doctor in Fresno contacted The Doctors’ Insurance Agency to ask a simple question: “Just make my policy extend to cover more hours and possibly more doctors” Can you endorse my current TDC policy to include evenings and weekends in the hospital.  Since he was already paying full time for his conventional Primary Care policy, and since the work that he was going to be doing in the hospital was consistent with his regular field of training and education, there was nothing to be done to his policy.  We just noted the file, continued his policy and he increased his workload.   Eventually, the work in the hospital, the contractual  commitment that he made began to grow, to eclipse the work in his primary care practice. Creating a policy that can accommodate a changing roster. Still his policy was unchanged. As the hours and patients and referrals and expectations from the hospital grew,  all he had to do to staff his 7 day per ...