Malpractice insurance is important for physicians to protect themselves financially from lawsuits resulting from clinical errors. There are two main types of malpractice insurance: claims-made policies, which only cover incidents reported during the active policy period, and occurrence policies, which provide lifetime coverage but are more expensive. Physicians need to carefully choose the type of policy that best fits their practice setting and specialty based on cost, coverage duration, and state requirements to ensure adequate financial protection from potential malpractice claims.

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How ‘Malpractice Insurance’ Can Save You from Drowning
Financially During Malpractice Law Suits
Physicians, who are generally known for highest professional integrity, often have to live with the tag of
‘malpractice’ despite clinical errors being unintentional. While patients’ have every right to get indemnified
for the grievance, physicians’ sole choice of protection against monetary liability – which may vary from
few thousand to many thousand dollars depending on the severity of the clinical error – happens to be
'malpractice liability’. Thus, whether you like or not, malpractice insurance is now more a necessity than an
option. Moreover, malpractice insurance often needs to chosen carefully depending on the context in
which physicians find themselves in – physicians employed in a hospital may need to be insured differently
from those who may be operating their clinics. Because of these inherent priorities, physicians have to
aware and knowledgeable of the malpractice insurance that best safeguards them against any eventuality.
It may be remembered that professional liability insurance can be availed as either ‘occurrence’ or ‘claims-
made’ policy. While most of the policies offered by the insurers are claims-made, you can still avail opt for
occurrence policies, which are relatively costlier than claims-made policies.
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Claims-Made Policies
In claims-made insurance, carrier is obligated to provide coverage only for the incidents that occur and get
reported during the time of your insurance being active. Therefore, it is necessary that both the incident
and the filing of the claim happen while the policy is in effect.
Suppose you discontinue with a claims-made policy, and get sued for a malpractice during the time when
your claims-made was still in force, you will not be covered against any such suit unless you have kept alive
your original claim-made policy with ‘tail coverage’, the term used for extended reporting endorsement.
Despite tail coverage being expensive – as far as three times the value of an annual premium – it is often
recommended to be active with tail coverage for any claims that could be reported years after they first
happened. Tail coverage is also beneficial to physicians who change over to private practice from hospital
employment where employer may have been covering them with claims-made policies alone.
Occurrence Policies
On the other hand, occurrence policies are more protective in nature, offering lifetime coverage for the
incidents the incidents gets reported long after the expiry of policies. Suppose, you are sued in 2013 for a
malpractice that took five years earlier when you were covered under an occurrence policy, you still are
entitled to be covered under the your erstwhile occurrence policy even though it has expired. But a major

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drawback with occurrence insurance is that they are apparently too costly to be borne by smaller
physicians.
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While physicians may possible chose among the forms of malpractice insurance, malpractice liability is
something that is quite inescapable. The alarming increase professional liability claims does quite vindicate
the significance of having some form of malpractice insurance. While it may not restore the possible loss of
credibility of goodwill of your clinical practices, it could surely prevent you from drowning financially.
Therefore, your choice and quantum of malpractice insurance should necessarily be tailored to your
practice specialty, practice location, ability to offer collateral security, and more importantly according to
state legal requirements under which you are operating.
However, you may find it hard to reconcile these multiple considerations, and possible be better off with
some external advice availing malpractice insurance. Medicalbillersandcoders.com, which holds the
distinction of being a premier platform for sourcing medical billing solutions, is equally adept at suggesting
and securing ‘malpractice insurance’ for physicians either employed in a hospital setting or practicing
independently. Our broad base of experts, knowledgeable with various malpractice insurance policies and
state-specific rules can be relied upon for implementing the insurance policies that best suit your need and
capability.