Your Own Lifestyle Medicine Center and You Need to Provide Liability Insurance for other M.D.

October 23, 2018

If you are joining the many physicians and other healthcare professionals who are starting your own lifestyle medicine center and you need to provide liability insurance for other MD's or allied providers, The Doctors' Insurance Agency has a medical professional liability policy to fit this full or part time practice.

Whether you are the founder of a clinic, and you need a policy to cover you, your business, or the non-medical staff; or you need a part time policy to cover you (separate from your regular medical group policy), we can help you find the right policy.

A center policy covering a lifestyle medicine clinic should include a rolling tail (this is an endorsement on a group policy that functions like a full occurrence policy), allowing the doctors and employed or contracted providers to cancel off of the lifestyle medicine liability insurance policy without having to purchase tail.

This is because with a 'rolling tail' endorsement, any claim presented in the future against a former insured on the policy will be covered as long as the policy remains active.

Lifestyle Medicine is more and more essential to sustainable health and healthcare and consequently we (our national liability insurance brokerage) are seeing more and more lifestyle medical clinics and practitioners practicing direct to patient or through the use of advanced telehealth, telemedicine platforms to bring this important counsel to employers and large groups of patients needing direction and medical guidance improving their lives.

Just as it has been found in functional (age management medicine) with the integration of hormone supplements, vitamin IV and aesthetic injectable procedures, a person can become healthier and sustain wellness, so it is true with lifestyle counselling and nutritional choices. The rise in chronic disease trends and related healthcare spending in the United State and in many other countries around the world is unsustainable. Type 2 diabetes alone is a looming global pandemic with incalculable consequences. The priority is to find one professional liability insurance policy to cover you for all of these services without exceeding $ 7,000 in annual premium. This insurance should be affordable and not require several tail insurance policies when you cancel services.

Lifestyle medicine is supportable by affordable implementation of healthcare available using mobile apps and websites. And, The Doctors Insurance Agency is happy to have insurance markets available to make the medical malpractice, Medical Professional Liability Insurance for lifestyle medical professionals affordable and supportable going forward into the next three to five years of premium increases. These increases are not as significant as the traditional claims made policies because the rating calculus and policy terms are different, and the policies are often offered in the more flexible surplus lines market.

Lifestyle Medicine involves the use of evidence-based lifestyle therapeutic approaches, such as a predominantly whole food, plant-based diet, regular physical activity, adequate sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substance use, and other non-drug modalities, to prevent, treat, and, oftentimes, reverse the lifestyle-related, chronic disease that's all too prevalent. These remedies often do not involve the traditional 'physician patient' delivery of medical care (and the concern is that the policies are not 'triggered' if the treatment resembles a consultation rather than a hands on medical treatment.

The surplus lines market (companies like Lloyds, Admiral, Hallmark, National Fire and Marine) work with The Doctors Insurance Agency to provide solutions for these Lifestyle and Functional Medicine Physicians.