The Doctors’ Insurance Agency, medical malpractice insurance experts in California in our third decade, just helped one group provide this type of coverage which resulted in sizeable premium savings. It is important to ask your agent about the best way to insure the Endoscopy Center and equally important to work with an agency that understands the risks and the ways to provide the insurance.

Just as in working in a hospital setting, the plaintiffs cast a wide net when naming the parties in their negligence claims, including all of the providers and entries in the supply of services chain. As such a separate professional liability policy is important because the plaintiffs will often name the medical group, the endoscopy center and the physician when presenting a negligence claim. The Endoscopy Center has credentialing, clinical and administrative liabilities that should all be protected separate from the physicians using the clinic.

Recently, The Doctors’ Insurance Agency was able to help a group of four Gastroenterologists insure their Endoscopy Center for Medical Malpractice Insurance after twelve years of maintaining their own separate policy with a carrier that was separate from the group’s own physician insurer.

The medical assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, employed CRNA’s and any other employed healthcare worker can be included in the coverage provided by this separate insurance limit. Endoscopy Centers must also consider that they have a duty to maintain the HIPPA-protected record data for each patient. Additionally there are billing (private and Medicaid) responsibilities that can trigger Centers for Medicare Services audits, State Board of Quality Assurance inquiries, allegations of wrongful acts on the part of employees, associates and other physicians.

Think of your Endoscopy Center as a separate, risk producing healthcare center, with billing, record, healthcare, quality, clinic and patient care responsibilities. The Endoscopy Center is an extension of your practice, it is imperative to insure, manage and learn it well.