Episode 6: Medical Malpractice Insurance (Transcript)

SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Heroes of Healthcare Podcasts, Special Edition. I'm your host, Ted Wayne. Today our guest is Roger Bonds. Roger's advised physicians on their careers for over two decades. He's reviewed over 3,000 physician employment contracts and physician partnership agreements with private practices, hospitals, academia, medical, and pharmaceutical companies. These contracts represent over 1,300 employers throughout the U.S. and abroad. He's president and CEO of PhysicianCareerAdvisor.com. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, where his primary work includes offering expert advice for physicians in private practice and academia. This includes job search and comparison, CV review, interview skills, non-compete agreements, compensation, and buy-in and buy-out options. In this episode, Roger will walk us through the several types of medical malpractice insurance and how it may impact your career. Medical malpractice insurance is critical, as you consider various local lieutenants and permanent physician assignments. So let's get into the show. Roger, help us understand what we should know about medical malpractice insurance in relation to local lieutenants and permanent physician opportunities.

SPEAKER_00: I've often been asked about malpractice insurance. Of course, what it's all about is covering you for any acts or omissions that you might have had while practicing treating a particular patient. And with that, you're going to have so much coverage that is going to be perhaps a million dollars per incident, could be a total of three million for the year. So one million, three million is the typical one, although it could be more, it could be less, especially depending on your specialty and depending on the state. But how long does this insurance last? Well, it could be that it is going to be a claim-to-made policy and it only covers you for the time that you're on the job and then you need to have a writer that is added to that after you leave the job that is typically called tail insurance. In thinking of the tail coverage, this is going to be the extended reporting period or coverage that you're going to have for any of those patients who were to quote Sue after the day that you left. Now, you have to make sure that you have that in place, whether you're paying for it or whether the employer is paying for it. By the way, for additional information on tail coverage and who should pay and what is it actually covering and not covered, you might want to watch my full YouTube video that's on our website, PhysicianCareadvisor.com. So thinking about this coverage that you have to have, if you're ever working in a position, whether it's a temporary and a location or it's a local tenant, then make sure that you're going to have that sort of tail coverage for when you leave. And be careful about the particular company that you might use such as her local tenants. Typically, the local tenants company is going to provide this coverage. But if they are a very small company, are they even going to be around when you might need that insurance? It's a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. And if they are not as large as we might hope, then you need to think about it. That's a risk because if they were to close down or stop that particular coverage that they're paying for, then you're going to be left out cold and it can be a real problem. Another great question is, are there different tail coverages for various specialties? And think about that if there's a great deal more risk like OBGYN versus family practice versus psychiatry when it comes to having this sort of coverage. Well, the OBGYN would certainly want to have coverage for at least 18 years throughout the young person's life because what if there was a problem that came about because of the birthing process and it's 15 years later. Whereas for the psychiatrist, the family practitioner and others, there's not nearly as much risk. But realize that this varies not only by specialty, but by state. Many organizations, especially the large employers, whether they are a hospital and employ a number of doctors or multi-specialty groups, then they just might homogenize all of this and everyone is covered perhaps for so many years or perhaps for the rest of their career literally. To clarify, the difference between the claims made policies and the occurrence policies, the occurrence policies basically have the tail insurance built in. So you're covered for the rest of your career, whatever period of time is appropriate. Then you want to make sure of course that that employer, whoever it is that you're contracted with, that they have you appropriately covered and that they're still going to have that policy later on. For example, if you're working with a really small look at a tennis company, there is some risk that they might not have that policy. Same thing goes if you were to work for a small practice just on your own. If you contracted with them to work these weekends or a few days or weeks or even a few months, you need to make sure that you have a high confidence level that they are going to have you covered for the rest of your career.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you for these insights which are really valuable for our physician community. If you enjoyed this information, please look out for the other topics we'll be covering with Roger. If you want to learn more, visit PhysicianCareerAdvisor.com. Thanks for joining us on this special edition of the Heroes of HealthCare podcast. We'll see you soon.