If you operate an allied healthcare practice, it’s important to have adequate general and professional liability protection. This coverage can protect your business if a patient sues you or your staff, such as a nurse, physical therapist, or dentist, for negligence. However, you may not be fully protected if there are coverage gaps on your liability policy. Here’s how to plug liability coverage holes for your allied healthcare practice.
How Professional and General Liability Insurance Can Help
Despite your allied healthcare organization’s best effort and commitment to quality care, mistakes that result in harm to the patient may occur. Consider the scenario of an occupational therapist administering care to an elderly patient in the patient’s home. While the therapist was momentarily out of the room, the patient fell on the floor, bruising their hip.
The patient’s family sued the caregiver for negligence, arguing that the injury wouldn’t have occurred had the worker stayed in the room to keep watch on the patient. The employee’s professional liability insurance could cover any costs incurred as a result of the lawsuit. Other scenarios in which this coverage may provide protection include:
- A nurse is sued for administering an incorrect dosage of medication, hurting the patient’s health
- One of your employees (a health aide) faces patient abuse claims
If the employee in question has sufficient general and professional liability coverage, then your healthcare organization can avoid financial loss in any of the above claims scenarios. However, you’d have to pay out of your company’s cash account for judgments or settlements against any underinsured employee.
Liability Coverage Gaps to Close for Your Allied Healthcare Practice
To avoid having to pay out of pocket for errors of omission and commission claims against your staff, you’ll want to close any existing liability coverage gaps. Watch out for insufficient general and professional liability insurance coverage in areas such as:
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Licensed Healthcare Professionals
If you’re like many allied healthcare businesses, you require your doctors to carry a malpractice policy for professional liability protection. However, allied health practitioners like technicians, nurses, and medical assistants don’t usually have malpractice coverage. The staff responsible for mobile diagnostics or administering prescription medication may also lack this insurance protection. Your business may be exposed to negligence claims as a result of this liability coverage gap.
Keep in mind that a malpractice policy usually protects the individual practitioner. It may not always protect your organization when sued for your employee’s negligence. To plug those coverage holes, you’ll want to get broader professional liability coverage for your allied healthcare business covering all staff and sub-contractors.
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Abuse Exclusions
Another coverage gap for your allied healthcare business may arise from professional liability policies not covering abuse and molestation claims against your workers. Likewise, general liability policies may not recognize an allied healthcare practitioner as an insured. For these liability gaps, consider buying extended coverage.
You can protect your allied healthcare business against negligence claims and similar issues by obtaining strong general and professional liability coverage. For help eliminating any coverage gap on your liability policy, contact the team at Gee-Schussler Insurance today. We will closely guide you in creating the right coverage for potential errors of omission and commission claims.
