Malpractice Insurance

[anitah]

I am finding that most employers will cover your malpractice insurance but "tail coverage" is a different story (and also very expensive). My questions:

1) Is it better to buy your own coverage and negotiate a higher salary?

2) And what if you were to work 2 different PA jobs? If your employers carry your malpractice insurance at 2 different jobs, is it job specific or would you have double coverage (2 policies)?

3) If you had your own insurance, would it cover you at both jobs (even if they were 2 different specialties)?

 

Any words of wisdom from the workaholics out there?

[Magicnubs]

Things like these would be good for me to learn, so here I await some knowledge.

[ventana]

1- they should provide full coverage (occurance or claims made with tail) having said that I have a few times run into a weird situation - claims made but PA is not a named insured and therefor if the policy (which covers the corporation) remains in effect their is coverage in place. Only way for their to be no coverage is if the Doc's close corporation - in this case I have not purchase tail coverage - I am a PA with minimal assest versus the Doc - the doc's in these cases are HIGHLY unlikely to ever not have malpractice insurance (was 5-10 doc practices) so I made the leap of faith that they would continue to cover..... I have some minimal liablity in that if they ever did become uninsured I would be SOL - but the agent assured me that by law they would have to notify me of the lapse in coverage and I would be able to purchase the tail at that point....

 

2-your policy covers that place you work for - if you have two jobs the they will not cover each other (see #3)

 

3- if you buy your own insurance it covers you for everything you do. Had the position that I wanted to do a per diem gig for one weekend a month covering in patients - Had to provide my own insurance - spoke to many different carriers and they refused to cover just the per diem - only would write a full time policy for me as I work full time in addition to the per diem - they look at it as covering you as a PA not just and employee at one job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never been sued and i am sure someone that has might have a different outlook. But as my nest egg increases I have to admitt I am wondering about getting my own policy - even a very low limit (ie 50/100) policy to atleast gain the legal defense (one of the biggest benefits of mal insurance - who wants to pay an atty to defend yourself against a bogus claim??)

[joanna.nola]

Ventana--my question (which comes from doing a presentation on malpractice insurance to my PA class yesterday) is could you have "double" insurance? Like, for instance, be under your SP's policy, but go ahead and get a low policy that will then cover your moonlighting gig? How would it work, then, if you got sued for something you did in your regular job?

[anitah]

Thanks for the advice Ventana. Being a prior insurance agent, I do know that if you had two policies that the primary policy would pay first and the additional policy would kick in second if claims made exceeded the primary policy. Not sure which one would be the primary though...

[coloradopa]

I am finding that most employers will cover your malpractice insurance but "tail coverage" is a different story (and also very expensive). My questions:

1) Is it better to buy your own coverage and negotiate a higher salary?

 

2) And what if you were to work 2 different PA jobs? If your employers carry your malpractice insurance at 2 different jobs, is it job specific or would you have double coverage (2 policies)?

 

3) If you had your own insurance, would it cover you at both jobs (even if they were 2 different specialties)?

 

Any words of wisdom from the workaholics out there?

My take on this which may be different than others.

1. Its better to have them buy the insurance. If you negotiate a higher salary then the insurance suddenly climbs (for whatever reason) then you are out that money. Good luck trying to negotiate a higher salary then. On the other hand for them its a tax deductable business expense. If yours increases most likely theirs will also so they will just include it in the cost of doing business.

2. It depends on the insurance. At my first two jobs I had my policy through CM&F which was under my name. It covered me for any acts in the category I bought it in. If I remember there were three tiers. First was primary care and some specialty care. Second was EM, non CV non ortho surgery, last was CVs Ortho and OB/GYN. If you were doing the job in the proper category or less then you were covered. So if you can get them to pay to cover you, you should be OK. If on the other hand you are on a rider or group policy off the practice then it usually only covers what you do at the practice. I currently work for a large university that self insures for malpractice. When I moonlight the other practice covers the malpractice. At my old job I could moonlight in UC under my same policy.

3. See number two it depends on the specific practice.

 

My advice is see if they will pay for your policy through CM&F that will cover you in more than one job.

[anitah]

Coloradopa - great advice! Thanks!