The Doctors' Insurance Agency and Hospitalist Liability Insurance:
With the endorsement of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), The Doctors Company continues to lead the medical malpractice insurance industry, creating risk management programs and online resources that make a difference: and creative cost effective insurance concepts for this specialty.
The Doctors' Company Manages Hospitalist Risk.
For years now, The Doctors' Company has partnered with national and local specialty societies and associations to study trends in claims and injury. Communication is key in this specialty (as it is in almost every specialty). And, without the partnership of SHM, The Doctors' Company would not learn as much about the specific and unique challenges of this specialty.
We sponsor closed claim studies, panels, online and in conference meetings to discuss how to perfect the handoff between the hospitalists and the employed nursing and paramedical staffs at hospitals. We study the administration and record keeping, the hiring and cost of firing, we study where and why the claims are brought and how they can be avoided. The Doctors' Company is working hard to keep the cost down of malpractice insurance in this specialty.
Unique Hospitalist Malpractice pricing, no cost of tail insurance many times we have tried to fit a conventional primary care or internal medicine practice into a hospitalist insurance model. The problem is in the claims made insurance world, you just can't avoid the high cost of tail when a physician cancels off of the policy. Since Claims made is almost always more cost efficient than occurrence, it is preferred to find a way to make these hospitalist claims made policies work. Hospitalist groups need to hire and cancel many physicians; the challenge is: when you cancel a physician, or when the at physician takes a break from the job, inevitably there is a cost of tail (paying the future claims) which must be allocated, charged or reserved. Help Administering the group changes in hospitalist, telemedicine, urgent care an emergency medical physician groups are common -you just can't staff a 24/7 commitment with five to seven doctors... groups need dozens on the credentialed and insured roster. The hiring and firing needs to be flexible and affordable. Otherwise, The time required to administer an insurance policy for these groups will be a huge obstacle, in the way of profitability, indeed viability of the group. Additionally, administrators must manage the contracts, develop personnel protocol and work hard to manage the risk of negligence claims.
The Doctors Insurance Agency works closely with The Doctors Company underwriters to create these easy to administer and affordable hospitalist medical malpractice insurance policies. There can be a single shared limit with the flexibility of adding and subtracting positions without incurring any additional cost. there can be a separate limit covering the entity with another limit expanding to provide a per incident limit of liability for each physician named in the claim however all covered by a single shared physician limit - this provides that same ease of administration and cost efficient premium development.
Each Rostered Hospitalist Physician with separate limit another slightly more expensive method of pricing this policy would be to structure the policy where each position on the roster has their own separate limit. And, surprisingly this is not that much more expensive than a single shared limit per position.
Regardless of the premium for the policy, it is important to work with agencies and companies that understand the unique nature of the hospitalist risk.
The Doctors' Company and SHM and The Doctors' Insurance Agency working to find the best solution.
The partnership with the Society of hospital medicine gives the doctors company outstanding understanding and insight into this specialty. Additionally, TDC has so many insureds across the country: the National scope of the company with their 74000 physicians and thousands of mid level providers working across all specialties makes The Doctors Company keenly positioned to understand and price hospitalist medicine.