“Ask eQuoteMD, with Tim Ryan.” A medical malpractice insurance video blog question and answer session to help physicians have a better understanding of their coverage options. eQuoteMD provides quality solutions for medical malpractice insurance to doctors, surgeons, clinics, hospitals and facilities across the United States.
Video Transcript –
Tim Ryan: Hello and welcome to eQuoteMD’s medical malpractice insurance video blog. I’m Tim Ryan and I’m here to answer your medical malpractice insurance questions.
Speaking of questions. A very blunt one was sent to me a couple of days ago and I would like to discuss that with you today, because I feel that it cuts right to the heart of the medical malpractice insurance issue.
The question was, “Tim. How specifically do I go about lowering my medical malpractice insurance premiums?” Like I said, right to the heart of the issue. It is a very good question and there is a lot of way to lower your premiums. Today we are going to talk about the top four.
Now the first way to lower your medical malpractice insurance premiums is to see if your medical liability insurance company offers risk management courses. Now, most medical malpractice insurance companies are going to offer a discount for doctors who take risk management courses. Generally that discount is going to be somewhere around five percent.
These risk management courses are relatively simple for a doctor to complete in order to save the money. Essentially most of these courses are going to be online, which means that you do not have to go anywhere. Most of the time these courses are only going to take an hour to two hours, which means it doesn’t take a lot of your time. Thirdly, most of the time your courses are going to be free. So, if you don’t have to go anywhere and it is very easy, if it doesn’t take very much time and it’s free; it is a really efficient way to save some money on your medical malpractice insurance premiums.
The second way to save money is a little more laborious. However, it is going to be more impactful to your practice overall. It is board certification. Now, that can take a little more time and a little more effort than risk management courses. Board certification, generally, will carry with it certain discounts for some medical liability insurance companies. So, if you are board certified you may be able to save some additional dollars on your premium expenses.
In addition to that, it seems that the market is going towards focusing on doctors with board certification. For example, there are companies out there that will not consider a doctor that is not board certified. Those companies have the lowest premiums for the most part. Therefore, doctors who are board certified may find themselves having more options than the doctor who is not.
The third way to save some money on your medical malpractice insurance premiums is what is called a five year claims free discount. Essentially meaning that you have had no claims for the previous five years of practicing. Now, this is especially important for two different categories of doctors.
The first doctor is the one that is getting out of residency or the one who just recently has. You will not receive this discount right away because you have not had five years of consistent practice in the medical field outside of your residency. So, you are not going to receive it for the first few years, but right around your four, start asking your broker, or the medical liability insurance company that you are with, if that discount is available and if you are going to qualify for it. Sometimes it may not always be brought up, so take the proactive approach and ask about.
The second doctor that this is going to be important for is the doctor who has had a claim. Obviously the first couple of years after a claim you may not be eligible for this discount, but as the years go on make sure that you are asking about. Make sure that you are asking your broker or the medical liability insurance company about this discount and when you are going to qualify for it again so you can start saving money with this discount.
Now the final way to save money on your medical malpractice insurance premiums is to shop the market. The medical malpractice insurance market is dynamic and fluid and ever-changing. You may have the lowest rates this year with the company that you are with, but that could all change next year and a different company, for your specific situation, could have the lowest rates. These companies change their rates all the time due to things like tort reform, their own financial situation positioning and the types of specialties and situations that they are going for in the market.
All that to say, everything changes in the medical malpractice insurance market all the time. If you are not shopping the market at your renewal, you may be missing out on your premium savings. Again, I’m Tim Ryan here with eQuoteMD’s medical malpractice insurance video blog. Thank you for your time and we will talk to you soon.
If you would like to have one of your questions answered by Tim Ryan, please follow @eQuoteMD on Twitter and send us a “tweet” with your question. You can follow Tim Ryan on Twitter as well @TheMedMalMan.
Request your free medical malpractice insurance quote today to have one of eQuoteMD’s network liability professionals help protect your practice and see how much you can save on your medical malpractice insurance.
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