Orthopedic Surgery is the most common specialty in which physicians are asked to serve as consultants or full time team doctors for professional sports teams or sports federations.
The Doctors Insurance Agency insures dozens of orthopedic surgeons throughout the United States.
Recently, one of our groups was contacted to provide services for a professional sports team. Not surprisingly, the professional team had other doctors working in the same capacity.
These sports team physicians ranged from primary care and allergy to pain management and neurology.
The question in such arrangements is often whether Medical Malpractice Professional Liability Insurance policies have sufficient limits to insure the doctors and the organization when working as a physician for an athlete or artist celebrity who has millions in earnings.
Highly paid executives or professional athletes and performers can bring a risk of higher claim demands.
The Doctors Insurance Agency recommends two options to insure team doctors.
A) The physician or physicians who are contracting for these services can adjust their plan to give them higher limits than the others in the group who are not serving in this role.
For example, if the others in the group are carrying 1,000,000 / 3,000,000, then this doctor might carry 2,000,000 / 5 million or 3,000,000 / 6 million.
B) The other solution is to raise the aggregate limit of the group without raising the individual per claim limit of the other doctors.
If everyone in a group carries an Orthopedic Surgery Professional Liability Insurance Policy with limits $1,000,000/$3,000,000 the group can raise the limit for the physician to 2 million and raise the entity aggregate to 10 million. This way if the group is dragged into a claim along with the treating sports professional doctor, then the limit total for the group is 10 million.
The higher aggregate limit creates legal defense resources that would cover any midlevel provider or other medical allied employee connected to this professional sports team service.
Raising the aggregate limit to 10 million does not affect the premium significantly. With this solution, the only premium affected would be that of the physician providing the service.
Increasing the limit from 1,000,000 / 3,000,000 to 2,000,000 5,000,000 is easy. The physician’s premium would increase, and the aggregate increases to cover the other doctors' vicarious connections.
Raising the aggregate from 3,000,000 to 10 million has a nominal impact on the overall premium.
The Doctors Insurance Agency has implemented strategies such as this to protect the groups and all allied medical personnel working in association and on behalf of professional sports teams, without greatly affecting their premiums.
Contact our website or call us to discuss your group’s potential to work with professional sports teams, highly paid executives or artists. Our solutions can be affordable and effective.