Nephrology Medical Professional Liability Policies

If you are working in a nephrology group, there are a few important issues you should consider to reduce your overall cost of managing medical professional liability insurance.

The first issue is the matter of medical directorship. Nephrology groups will sometimes have responsibilities to serve as medical directors at dialysis centers (there are also medical foundations with ownership interests in dialysis centers.) Additionally, medical directors can present at outpatient clinics and hospitals.

Medical malpractice insurance policies normally carry a separate limit protecting the healthcare organization employees and non-medical doctor providers, these entity policies can extend and be endorsed to include coverage for medical director work.

Telemedicine is defined as the remote delivery of healthcare services, whether they are medical consultations using videoconferencing, mobile apps, store and forward technology offering health assessments or lifestyle counseling. Technology can assist in the delivery of information and shorten the distance between the patient and the provider. Telemedicine can be classified into three main categories: remote patient monitoring, store and forward or interactive communication. Each of these has their own different risk profiles. 

A survey last year found that a quarter of adults in the United States don’t have a regular doctor. Some are wondering if they need one at all. Telemedicine can provide much of what conventional visits to clinics provide without the hassle of leaving work. taking time off, and struggling with traffic.

Healthcare experts say that the changing fragmented nature of healthcare is why people still need someone to help them navigate their healthcare. This is the traditional role of primary care physicians like family doctors, but arguably those health care providers do not always need face-to-face visits to do their job and to do it well.

Where do you  start to apply for and obtain medical malpractice insurance if you are going to practice telemedicine.

Start by listing the Telemedicine Organization address and describe your niche, describe the medical service that your innovation is bringing.
The underwriters need some ‘data points’ to assign a premium to your telemedicine organization.
The organization is the Named Insured, or as I like to call it, the anchor of the medical malpractice insurance policy;  From this ‘center’ of the policy, the insurance carriers build, sort of from the inside out:  they consider the total number of telehealth consultations provided by your physicians and mid levels,
the type of medical service,  the location of the physician and the location of the patient and the annual revenue

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This is one of the most commonly asked questions of by our Telemedicine Specialists. Understandably so…because….One of the most important costs to contain as you develop and implement your telemedicine organization is the mandatory (and sometimes prohibitively high) cost of medical professional liability insurance. And, one of the most common obstacles in the way of recruiting new physicians to the organization is the concerns about covering their Tail.

Teledentistry (Invisalign) Professional Liability Insurance

The Doctor’s Insurance Agency provides Medical Malpractice Professional Liability Insurance for Teledentistry Groups. While we treat each telemedicine practice as a custom risk, in the end, they all seem to be rated in a ‘pure risk’ fashion. Which is to say: the group projects the number of ‘consults’ or ‘reads’ and the premium is developed as a function of that regardless of the number of providers required to read or complete the contractual commitments of the Telemedicine group.

The right kind of Telemedicine Insurance Policy can make or break your start up telemedicine practice. Well maybe the right telemedicine policy will actually not break your telemedicine start up. But certainly can help you on board physicians, control costs , recruit, retain and manage financial risk over the long term of your practice.

The Doctors Insurance Agency is providing Health Care Providers and facilities with affordable, appropriately priced medical malpractice insurance.Again this week I learned as I continued this immersion into providing Medical Professional Liability Insurance for physicians, mid-level providers and allied healthcare providers that affordability is key in these early years - starting up a telehealth practice. You can't spend every available earned reimbursement paying your malpractice provider.

Start up telemedicine organizations are watching every dollar (as any entrepreneurial business). They are working hard to promote their business, reinvesting hard earned dollars in digital and paper marketing, traveling in buses and trains to attend shows, conventions and scientific meetings; often working in the margins of the day to provide the service that they are working so hard to promote.

Our agency has been finding Telemedicine Medical Professional Liability Insurance Solutions since 2002 (when a couple of innovative thinkers in the Silicon Valley in California (who happened to be Radiologists) decided that there was a business opportunity in providing Radiology services between Midnight and Eight in the morning.
 
We needed to endorse and expand their medical professional liability policy so that it was manageable (easy to add and inclusive of tail when their physicians cancelled).  The policy covering Telemedicine organizations, insuring them against medical malpractice claims had to be flexible and affordable.

The Doctor’s Insurance Agency provides medical malpractice professional liability insurance for healthcare facilities, employed  medical staff, (such as technicians, assistants, registered nurses, rehab specialists,  mid-level providers and medical doctors.

Among facilities in areas of healthcare that are growing, we are seeing increasing new groups and clinics in  urgent care, hospitalists  and telemedicine. Telemedicine has gained in  many specialty applications, from the intuitive psychiatry and radiology (which seem to lend themselves easily to Telemedicine Platforms) to primary care, acute care and even neurological consults performed remotely using store and forward technology, or real time consultations from remote sites to specialists  for treatment guidance.