Cyber Liability and Medical Professional Liability

February 10, 2017

As The Doctors Insurance Agency continues to work with telemedicine organizations on their medical professional liability insurance, it becomes very clear to us that the telemedicine professional liability policies must include at least a sub limit to protect the organization against a breach of data; they should purchase a cyber liability insurance policy to protect against hackers, people who are specifically deliberately and successfully targeting healthcare organizations - none more so than telemedicine against loss of data in the first party liability that comes with that loss.

Potential capabilities and benefits include:

While e-prescribing encourages patients to fill prescriptions, 28 percent of EHR prescriptions are not filled and 10–15 percent contain errors (one-third of which are potentially harmful).

Another challenge prescription programs is that the drug interaction alerts arrive so frequently so regularly that the doctors come down reviewing them. If physicians ignore the alerts warning of drug interaction conflicts be liable for not following the directives the alert fatigue acts as a disincentive to read, which ironically make the prescription program should be factored to the risk practicing medicine

Another unintended consequence of using electronic health record software is that use of word processors takes the traditional diligence and thoughtful process of writing out file notes out of the practice of medicine…By substituting a word processor for the physician’s thoughtful review and analysis, the narrative documentation of daily events and the patient’s progress may be lost, thereby compromising the record of the patient’s course. The quality of notes and documentation may be further compromised by the use of templates.

The computer ironically becomes a very directing care through the use of templates, examples form paragraphs all limit interaction conversation creative thinking

Liability Insurance for Data Breach:

Network Security Breach Insurance:

  1. Network Security and Privacy Insurance $50,000
  2. Regulatory Fines and Penalties Insurance $50,000
  3. Customer Notification and Credit Monitoring Costs Insurance $50,000
  4. Data Recovery Costs Insurance $5,000
  5. Maximum Aggregate Limit of Liability for All Coverages $50,000

Cyber Liability Risks Covered

  • Information security and privacy liability
  • Privacy breach response services
  • Regulatory defense and penalties
  • Website media content liability
  • Cyber extortion (e.g. ransomware)
  • First party data protection
  • First party network business interruption
  • Notification services

Most vendor contracts attempt to shift liability resulting from faulty software design or CDS data onto the physician. Some malpractice policies may exclude coverage for product liability and indemnification of third parties. The Doctors’ Company provides Cyber Liability so that you are not left on your own in the event of a breach incident.

This insurance can be very helpful and the criticism is the $50,000 is not enough….For that reason the Doctors insurance agency can help you place cyber liability with limits of up to 1 million per customer notification, data recovery and regulatory fines and penalties.

It is not only important to have professional liability insurance policy in place and also team of patient safety specialists who can respond on your behalf can help your office and train you bring an abundance of resources to teach you as a physician in your office staff how better to utilize powerful electronic health record software

Computer-assisted documentation uses point-and-click lists, drop-down menus, autofill, templates, and canned text to bypass natural language and produce structured progress notes. These contain redundant, formulaic information, making it easy to overlook significant clinical information that is lost in a sea of normal or irrelevant findings. Communication with on-call and consulting physicians may be compromised, and abnormal lab and imaging test results may be missed.