1. Claims Made Policy: This provides coverage for insured events occurring on or after the specified policy’s retroactive date, when the insured events are reported during the policy period. After the policy is terminated, it is important to purchase tail coverage to make sure that you are covered during the period of time that your claims made policy was in force. Since a claims made policy is only in force during the policy period, a tail policy will cover the period of time that your claims made policy was in effect until the claims made policy was terminated.
1. Some physicians are required to purchase their own tail coverage when leaving a position at a hospital. Many times the hospital will cover your medical malpractice insurance expenses while you are working at the hospital, but will hold the individual physician responsible for their own tail coverage.
2. Occurrence Policy: This type covers insured events that occur during the policy period, even after the termination of the policy, so long as the incident takes place during the period of time that the policy is in force. An occurrence policy functions similar to a claims made policy and tail policy combined, which negates the need to purchase a tail policy on top of your existing occurrence policy. Because of this, an occurrence policy is generally more expensive than a claims made policy. Make sure to talk to your Madison representative to make sure you have a policy that fits the specific needs of your practice.

1. Some companies will offer financing options to bring the initial cost down.

Make sure to speak with your Madison representative if you have any questions about your existing policy, or if you need to make any changes to your policy.

The use of the cloud gives businesses a level of efficiency that hasn’t historically been available to small and mid-level businesses, but what would happen if your service provider goes offline? When customer’s credit card transactions are being declined, or the ability of using your site is hindered, your customer satisfaction level begins to decline. Interrupting day to day business creates an issue where you are losing revenue on your daily transactions. There’s also the added cost of getting your system back up and running. Point being, there are a lot of unforeseen exposures that can arise from an increase in conducting business over the internet.

Data breach is also a very real component to this shift in business. According to an article written in Insurance Journal When Main Street Meets the Cloud, response costs associated with notifying customers of a network security breach reached nearly $200,000 in 2010. 60% of small businesses shut down within six months of a cyber attack.

What can I do to protect my business? Here are three questions to ask yourself that might help answer this question:

1. Are my day-to-day business operations relying on outside entities or vendors? Web or cloud based software providers and credit card processing vendors can present potential exposures. IT policies and procedures must contemplate not only your own systems and operations within your control, but those of third parties as well.

2. Does your business have a response plan in place, if in fact a data breach occurs? Also be mindful of the vendors that you work with. Do they have response plans in place? Having an experienced professional outline all of the necessary steps could help save you valuable time in responding in a crisis situation.

3. How much of the risk can be transferred by having Cyber Liability Insurance? By talking with an experienced insurance professional about the exposures you will face, as well as making sure you are fully protected, can mean the difference in a large incident turning into a small one, and vice versa if coverage is not in place. This can be a daunting task to tackle on your own, but there are many resources available to you including free advice from brokers such as Madison Healthcare Insurance Services.

Another resource available to you is a cyber planner that the Federal Communications Commission has put together for small businesses www.fcc.gov/cyberplanner.

A recent AMA report on the topic outlines substantial gaps in the understanding of ambulatory safety. With much of the current research available coming from hospital care, the gap in understanding is quite substantial when considering the figure that a majority of care actually takes place in outpatient settings.

To read the full report, click here: American Medical Association Report

To make sure you are fully covered, contact your Madison representative. Our goal is to help protect your healthcare facility so you can focus on providing top quality care for your patients.

Any business that stores personally identifiable information such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and patient records should have this added protection for their organization.

“The importance of this coverage has been growing in recent years, said Kathryn Bowen, Executive Vice President at Madison Healthcare Insurance Services. The more data is being stored on computers, laptops and even now with cloud based services, the potential for data breach is a real threat.”

There are a multitude of coverage options that can be utilized and tailored to fit the needs of your business specifically. By speaking with your Madison representative, we will be able to go over possible coverage options and help make sure your coverage is the right amount of protection at an affordable rate.

“Because this is a relatively new coverage, we are excited to be involved at such an early stage of the process,” said Bowen. “We are positioned in a unique way, where we can help a variety of customers in not only the healthcare field, but literally any business in any background. This is an exciting opportunity for Madison to branch out in to other areas outside of the healthcare insurance market. We are very confident that our level of expertise and extremely high standard in customer service will greatly benefit not only our existing clients, but also our future clients for years to come.”

To find out more information about Cyber Liability Insurance, visit www.cyberliability.com

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

This carrier has an A- rating by A.M. Best Company, and has been providing workers’ compensation insurance to small businesses for nearly a century.

It’s important to make sure you are saving the most amount of money possible, with a policy that covers your practice thoroughly. Your Madison representative is trained in workers’ compensation and will be able to assist you in any questions that you may have about adding this coverage.

According to the Veterans Health Administration handbook, “The Patient Safety Program’s goal is to prevent harm to patients. This is accomplished by taking steps in the way things are done so that the level of faith and trust in the VHA patient safety system is established and behaviors designed to prevent adverse events become a part of all employee behavior. NOTE: This is a never-ending process. In this way a “culture of safety” can be formed.”

The basic principle of this practice is for the physician who committed the error, to apologize to the patient, and when appropriate, compensation is offered.

In a recent article written by Business Insurance, Louise Kertesz writes that timely analysis of the error leads to improved care, according to experts involved. She also goes on to write,

“The best practice is not driven primarily by the various state mandates requiring disclosure of medical errors, industry experts said.

‘Public reporting is not the motivation behind this at all. We do it for two reasons: It’s the right thing to do and it makes good business sense,” said Jeffrey Driver, chief risk officer of Stanford University Medical Center and executive vp of the Stanford University Medical Indemnity and Trust in Stanford, California.”

Chief Risk Officer Richard Botthman of the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor said the hospital system implemented its program of full disclosure and compensation for medical errors 10 years ago.

With the new system in place, the hospital found the approach resulted in “a decrease in new legal claims (including the number of new lawsuits per month), time to claim resolution and total liability costs” in 2007 compared with 1995 according to a 2010 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs website, VA’s National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS) was established in 1999 to develop and nurture a culture of safety throughout the Veterans Health Administration.

The VA has a dedicated website to patient safety with a variety of resources available to the public and health care professionals. The National Center for Patient Safety

Where do the ratings come from? A.M. Best Company is a credit rating agency who independently issues credit ratings to insurance carriers based on a number of factors including the carrier’s ability to meet its ongoing insurance policy and contract obligations.

What is my premium? An agent from Madison can help you through the process of obtaining quotes for your medical malpractice insurance. Without having details that are usually outlined on your CV, it can be difficult to give an accurate quote and will likely be an estimate. If you want an exact premium, all you have to do is provide a Madison agent with your CV. We fill out all the necessary forms on your behalf. When the process is nearing completion, we will present your options for different premiums and the intricacies of the different policies.

Will hospitals accept my insurance? If the company has an A rating by A.M. Best and is a standard admitted carrier, it is highly likely that most hospitals will accept your insurance. Admitted Carriers Vs. Non-Admitted Carriers

Generally speaking, hospitals require that your carrier is admitted or has an A.M. Best rating of A or better. The vast majority of new to practice physicians are going to be able to get a standard admitted carrier with at least an A rating. How come? No claims. Since you are a new to practice physician, there is likely no prior risk that a carrier will need to take into consideration.

Will my carrier fight any claims I may get or will they settle? With many standard admitted carriers, one of the benefits that they have is the doctor’s consent to settle. This means that no claim can be settled without the doctor’s consent.

These cuts decrease the economic incentive for doctors to take on Medicare patients. What may end up happening is Medicare patients will find the supply of doctors who can offer them services, more and more scarce. With less money being paid for the type of care that some Medicare patients need, it simply will not be economically feasible for the doctor to see that patient. The profit margin for a given procedure could be miniscule or even negative. This creates scarcity in the medical field and negatively affects both patients and doctors.

The economic implications for individuals employed by doctors in the private sector could be negatively affected as well. With less money coming in for procedures, there is going to be less money for payroll, and some practices might be forced to lay off some of its staff.

Edward Gulko of northjersey.com writes that on average, a private medical practice will employ four to five people per physician. These offices purchase things such as office supplies, medical equipment, furniture, rent building space, buy insurance, require the services of accountants and attorneys, and the list goes on. This all has a profound impact on the local economy, and with less money coming in for procedures, less money will be used for expenses on the above mentioned items.

There doesn’t seem to be an immediate answer to the question at hand; which simply stated is, ‘How can the government cut spending without having social programs such as Medicare suffer?’ With the January 1 deadline quickly approaching, for the sake of everyone involved, let’s hope that congress comes up with an answer fast.

This year has been particular good to the medical malpractice insurance industry, as there have been many moves made by some of the largest carriers in the country. Right now these carriers are looking to expand into states that they traditionally have not written business in before, so a great way for them to break onto the scene is by offering attractive rates to their potential customers.

Keeping in mind that many people have had to take extra caution with their budgets, we are actually in a good position to save you some money on your MedMal policy.

Click here for your free medical malpractice insurance quote

Our number one goal is to save you money. If we can’t save you money, we’ll be up front with you and tell you what your best option is. Most of the time, we are able to save you a substantial amount of money. How is this possible? One word: Access. Madison has access to many carriers in both standard and non-standard markets. So instead of approaching one or two carriers, we can simply do more. Our resources for saving you money are much more vast than many of the other brokers that you could potentially be working with. The more options you have, the more freedom you have to choose an insurance carrier and premium that not only fit your budget, but also the needs of your practice.

So now the only question to ask yourself, is ‘Am I ready to save money?’ If you answer yes, chances are, we can help you with that. It doesn’t cost you anything to find out what your options are, so if you’re interested, fill out our quote form or call us today at 800-603-3311.

Many would argue that this decision is a sigh of relief for California doctors. It has been argued that the cap on non economic damages allows for greater patient access to doctors and thus helps to curb the cost of health care.

In its opinion, the California State Court of Appeals said the cap was enacted on valid rationale and does not compromise citizens’ rights.

“Our Supreme Court … has already determined the constitutionality of [the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act], in which it concluded the statute does not violate equal protection rights because the Legislature rationally could conclude a medical malpractice crisis existed that required legislative intervention to reduce medical malpractice insurance costs, and that [MICRA] is rationally related to the cost-reduction goal,” the court said.

Alicia Wagnon, legal counsel for the California Medical Association said she thinks the case ties in nicely with the importance of MICRA and its ability to stabilize medical malpractice insurance costs. This allows the state of California to retain doctors and provide the necessary care to the citizens of California.