The Doctors Insurance Agency in Northern California works hard to find many allied healthcare providers professional liability solutions.
Whether preparing for a colonoscopy or wanting to more thoroughly detoxify as a lifestyle choice of nutrition, wellness and cleansing, an increasingly common part of medispas are the colon hydrotherapy rooms.
There are many ‘stand alone’ Colon Cleanse Centers, and others are in conjunction with physicians or medispas.
This is an increasingly more common choice amongst patients pursuing alternative care.
Chiropractors are also growing their practices, sometimes with these colonic practitioners; The top insurance carriers for Chiropractors policies will soon adjust rates upwards to respond to this niche’s expanding care. There are six different insurance carriers we can work with in order to find the competitive and accurate fit for these holistic/ Eastern, Western practices of medicine. The Chiropractor insurance rates and demand have been plateaued for the past year, but with every other allied health care niche, the competition is making the secondary market (reinsurers) hold down rates. This is good for the consumer looking for medical malpractice risk protection.
Rates will remain but as Chiropractors begin doing more procedures, claims and rates will increase. So, we also expect with Colon Hydro therapists. Insurance markets do not remain static, you have to have an agency, advocating, representing and working hard in the market to develop relationships.
One of the most important services that we can provide is to understand and define the risk so that the premiums really reflect the risk.
Colon Hydro therapists and Chiropractors are growing in number:
Some Chiropractors are expanding coverage to include intravenous nutrient supplements under Class III or Mixer chiropractor categories. This is time when insurance Carriers must decide to either expand their forms to include the intravenous nutritional procedures or take a stand and push those procedures back onto physicians. As the procedures and centers grow, so grows the regulation and professionalism, the number of services at Colon Hydrotherapy Centers expands.
The Doctors’ Insurance Agency works with Specialty Insurance Carriers to provide Colon Hydrotherapy Professional Liability Insurance, Product Liability Insurance if the center is compounding or selling nutrients. General and Property Insurance protects the center completely from the risk of accident causing property damage or patient injury as often there is a lot of water present in these centers.
Multidisciplinary Health Centers:
Colon Hydro therapists, Cosmetologists and Massage Therapists are starting to join together to form ‘multi discipline’ aesthetic, wellness centers all across the country. We are seeing some Nurse Practitioners even open clinics combining Eastern And Western medicine to provide remedies to chronic pain situations. Holistic, detoxification and aesthetic care. These centers will respond well to a package of property, business and professional liability.
The Doctors’ Insurance Agency works to help you make sense of the need for these different insurance products for wellness centers and Colon Hydro therapists.
How these practices and their insurance needs grow and evolve:
Recently, we insured a physician who decided to open a small suite in the back to Colon Hydrotherapy (mainly as a means of preparing patients for colonoscopies or as one of the treatments to constipation), this service became busier, growing to include a chiropractor, massage therapist and nutritional counseling.
We first extended the primary care physician’s medical malpractice insurance policy to extend to the vicarious connection and supervision of the colon hydrotherapy but the carrier would not include the colonics in the coverage.
The need for the Colon Hydrotherapy Professional Liability Insurance put us into the market to search for the most affordable solutions. The Doctors’ Insurance Agency in Northern California regularly looks for creative solutions to insulate a physician’s medical malpractice insurance policy (e.g. a Plastic Surgeon who needs to add an Aesthetician providing laser and botox treatments); so the complement to the physician’s medical malpractice insurance is natural and in this instance not unexpected.
One blanket Liability Policy for Colon Hydrotherapy Center:
The ‘additional services’ were growing so significantly, we had to find a professional liability policy to cover the entire practice. Eventually, we worked with the practitioner to name the center separately, rent a different space, staff according to the services and needs, and insure this work entirely separately from his conventional medical practice.
Now carrying a separate, stand alone policy with Lloyd’s of London (managed and administered in part with our office and staff as well as with the Program Professional Insurance Brokers, national syndicate for Lloyd’s. This solution separates the insurance appropriately, brings in a team of risk management, claims and underwriting specialists to respond and advise this particular practice.
Physicians who build up practices that begin to evolve into something different than their underwriters understood when the original applications were completed should communicate the changes to the underwriter or agent. Often there is no difference in premium or the policy, but if there is no communication, you’re just hoping that the insurance policy and underwriter contemplated that portion of the risk. Disclosure and practice discussion is paramount in determining that your policy fits with the evolved risk.
Colon Hydrotherapists will soon begin to merge and join gastroenterology and family practices, just as the Chiropractors are providing riskier, invasive services, like chelatioin and prolotherapy under the banner of injectable nutrients. It is important to watch, read, communicate the policy and practice changes regularly as these specialties evolve and services expand, suddenly becoming the norm.
The Doctors’ Insurance Agency offers professional liability insurance for the closed system, class I colon hydrotherapy system, a general liability policy to protect he business and property from non professional services related law suits. Additionally, and importantly, we provide liability for the open system, FDA approved, self directed program.