From the category archives: Insurance Protection Blog

Hospitals


By Brad O'Brien
December 11, 2018

Hospitalist Groups are One of the Fastest-Growing areas within the Massive Health Care Economy

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. 
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By Brad O'Brien
March 16, 2017

Understanding Hospitalist Medical Malpractice Liability Insurance

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
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By Brad O'Brien
June 29, 2016

Understanding 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
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By Brad O'Brien
January 08, 2016

Hospitalists are Still Insurable on Individual, Solo Policies

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.  

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By Brad O'Brien
July 29, 2015

Are Hospitalists More Likely to be Sued on a Group Policy than of their Practicing as an Independent Contractor?

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
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By Brad O'Brien
May 15, 2015

The Partnership With the Society of Hospital Medicine Gives The Doctors Company Outstanding Understanding and Insight into 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.

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By Brad O'Brien
October 31, 2014

HOSPITALISTS/PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIANS New alliances and Affordable Medical Malpractice Insurance

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 ...
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By Brad O'Brien
August 06, 2014

Hospital Medicine initiates in early 1990’s

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 ...
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By Brad O'Brien
August 04, 2014

Hospitalists Liability and Risk Management: The important job of understanding the malpractice insurance market

In an article in A. M. Bests’ magazine, the author says that insurance company representatives, agents and brokers have to perform three important functions: ·       Do the transaction in the markets (which can be a very delicate balance, working hard to push the underwriters to rate the risk competitively without incurring more than 100 % loss ratio, which is to say, almost as much paid out as collected in!) ·         provide service to clients (which sounds easy and trivial and intuitive, but not always, surprisingly executed by the agents and company representatives. We all get busy, and we don’t always understand what our clients want, why they want it and, why on earth they need those answers so soon! ·         offer high end, specific, consultative strategy and advice. Broker and Agent Business Advice about purchasing medical and healthcare liability ...
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By Brad O'Brien
December 03, 2013

The new Medical Malpractice Insurance Model to accommodate Hospitalists

More and more, The Doctors Insurance Agency of Northern California; specialists in Medical malpractice insurance for over 20 years, is seeing the need to reinvent the old conventions of medical malpractice insurance. The model of how to insure physicians requires creating new ideas; The new medical malpractice policy for Hospitalist Groups is to build a policy allowing for three things: · Separate Malpractice Insurance Limits providing claims made coverage · Administrative Ease to allow for quick physician malpractice insurance approval · No tail cost when the physician is no longer needed to staff the 24 hour/7 day week hospitalist coverage. In other words, these policies need to be designed so that there is expensive tail bill when the physicians are no longer needed and cancel. What flexibility for a medical group administrator means is: ease of adding the physicians and not worrying about tail. That is to say: the application and approval process should be brief, cut through un ...
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