Business Consolidation with medical facilities and medical groups creates issues of ongoing coverage:
Just as with the medical groups, imaging centers are going through a similar business consolidation. Consolidation in the healthcare industry calls into the spotlight the issue of future reporting of claims and the insurance coverage that needs to be in place to respond to those claims.
Growth requires retroactive coverage
Acquiring Medial Groups will find it much easier if they are flexible on the issue; one of the obstacles to recruiting new physicians is the portability of the medical malpractice insurance policy. The risk of being named in a law suit is continuous, there is no end to the ‘risk event’ of providing medical services; This is because the claim is often presented years from when the services are provided. The acquiring company usually is insured with a malpractice insurance company that can provide prior acts insurance.
Eliminate the need to purchase Tail
Providing retroactive coverage at a reasonable premium can make the difference between successful growth strategy and significant difficulty in recruitment. There is a lot of competition for quality individual physicians in the market. Kaiser, Dignity, Sutter HealthCare and Stanford are all actively pursuing growth by acquisition.
Tail insurance costs prohibit recruitment
When medical groups grow, the issue of tail becomes important. It is important to determine which insurance company will respond and defend the entity that has been acquired. The company purchasing must decide on a case by case basis whether they are going to provide retroactive coverage for the entity or whether they will require a tail policy to be in place so that the acquired company comes in with no risk to the parents imaging Center.
Growth by acquisition continues according to Radiology Business news:
The Text from Radiology Business Online:
The Consolidation Beat Goes On: .. Outpatient Imaging-center Chains are growing as Reimbursement cuts are being met by cost-cutting initiatives in a still-fragmented outpatient imaging-center market. The freestanding outpatient imaging-center market continues to consolidate, with outpatient imaging-center companies, health systems, and private radiology practices all playing key roles, according to Radiology Business Journal’s premiere report on the 20 Largest Freestanding Outpatient Imaging-center Chains.
We strongly suspect that the number of freestanding outpatient imaging centers reported by our data provider in past years was overstated. CMS counted 2,421 independent diagnostic testing facilities (IDTFs) out of a total 3,440 that billed for imaging services in 2013. The real total could be higher than 2,421, as some imaging providers likely bill as office-based physician practices, but it is unlikely that the number is close to the 4,641 outpatient imaging centers that we reported last year.
Consolidation in facilities requires expertise in underwriting the prior history of the acquired facility . Representing Physicians and facilities for years the Doctors Insurance Agency is one of the nation's largest representatives of The Doctors Company competitive policy cover healthcare facilities.
New Medical Facilities Program
The Doctors Company announced the introduction of a Medical Facilities (MedFac) insurance program to be written on Excess & Surplus Lines paper through TDC Specialty Insurance Company. An experienced, collaborative team of underwriting, patient safety, and claims experts will create a program that meets your facility's needs.
Unrivaled Coverage Solutions Available for:
- Professional Liability
- Employee Benefits
- General Liability
- Regulatory Liability
- Privacy and Security Liability
- Excess and Umbrella Liability
Eligible Healthcare Facilities Include:
- Ambulatory surgery centers
- radiology and imaging centers
- medical laboratories physical rehab centers,
- emergency patients transportation dialysis centers
- urgent care centers,
- community health centers, home healthcare,
- University health centers
Professional Liability General Liability Property Liability Cyber Liability
After years of working in a conventional clinical practice, we recently had a physician and a chiropractor collaborate to invest in healthcare personnel, licensed technicians, paramedical providers, surgical technicians and expert medical building contractors and architects to design state-of-the-art medical spas and surgery centers. Our agency is very pleased to be working with them to find the right fit for their medical professional liability and their business property in general liability.
Pricing / premiums for the combination of electronic data or cyber liability - a broad general liability policy umbrella liability, and a medical professional liability policy can often be less than $8000 per year for an average surgery center. Working with companies like Admiral, Medical Protective, Lloyd's of London and The Doctors Company. We are ready to go to work to make sure the past physician’s practice, and the entities’ (health care organizations coming together to form the new group) have the appropriate prior acts coverage going forward. Because claims are a certain aspect of this business, and since claims are a certainty in all specialties, make sure the agency and carrier are working together properly underwrite the new policy.
In Radiology and imaging Centers: Missing a diagnosis, most frequently one of breast cancer, is the most common reason for a malpractice lawsuit to be brought against a radiologist in the United States, according to a study published in the journal Radiology.
Radiology Business Journal and New Jersey Med School report the numbers of claims over the past years. Researchers from the New Jersey Medical School gathered information from 1955 to 2010 that included the malpractice histories of 8,265 radiologists, who were credentialed members of One Call Medical, a preferred provider organization that manages diagnostic imaging for workers’ compensation claims.
According to the findings, 2,624 of the radiologists, 31 percent, had at least one claim in their career. The most common cause for a suit was diagnostic error, which totaled as 14.83 claims per 1,000 person-years. The most frequently missed diagnosis were, per 1,000 person-years:
- Breast cancer, 3.57 claims
- Nonspinal fracture, 2.49 claims
- Spinal fractures, 1.32 claims
- Lung cancer, 1.26 claims
- Vascular disease, 1.08 claims
Put our team to work to make sure you have the proper coverage going back and guiding ahead.