Skip to main content

A Brief Guide to Medical Malpractice Insurance Policy



A medical malpractice insurance policy is designed to protect doctors from misusing their knowledge or not applying the right practice at the right time. Medicine is a very complex field in which you cannot afford to make mistakes for the simple reason that your decision may injure someone temporarily, permanently or in the worst case scenario, even take someone's life. A medical malpractice insurance policy protects one as much as possible against such disasters.

How Does a Medical Malpractice Insurance Policy Work?

The provider of the medical malpractice insurance policy has two primary obligations - defense and indemnity. The obligations to defend requires the provider to hire a lawyer to defend the charges bought against the alleged doctor and; the obligation to indemnify requires the provider to pay an amount up to the policy limits settlement or judgment on any covered claim against the doctor.

The policy provider will generally hire a lawyer that has been agreed upon mutually with the doctor to work on the case, and pay all fees necessary for the hired lawyer; while the accused doctor is allowed to hire another lawyer on their own the policy provider is not required to pay that additional fees. Keep in mind that the company's lawyer will have its best interests at heart, not necessarily yours.

Finally, a medical malpractice insurance policy has the 'consent to settle' clause' that requires the insurance carrier to obtain the doctor's approval in order to settle the case. When pleading to consent to settle which does happen many times, the doctor places the power of decision regarding the settlement with the insurance company.

The Duties of the Insured Doctor

The doctor who bought the policy does have some obligations to fulfill beyond merely paying the premium every month; for instance, in case of a filed claim, the insurance policy requires the doctor to cooperate fully in order to have a smooth investigation of the filed case, and the doctor is required to provide any data requested by the investigators with regard to the victim and case.

Many medical malpractice suits are settled out of the court, usually coming to a mutual understanding beneficial to both parties. However, such lawsuits require a lot of time and energy from both parties in order to provide all data required and attend all required hearings. They are stressful and often take their toll on both the parties. A medical malpractice insurance policy is meant to protect both the doctor and the patient at the same time; acting as an arbitrary party in order to bring light on the actual happenings.

Popular posts from this blog

There Is Little Chance That You Will Win That Medical Malpractice Law Suit

Out of the every five cases that make it to court, only one medical malpractice law suit comes out ahead. This is pretty bad odds by any standard. This happens because the strength of any medical malpractice law suit depends upon the ability of the medical malpractice attorney to put up the technical and non-technical medical terms in a simple and legible language both for the jury and the judge. It also depends upon the capacity of the medical malpractice attorney to gather the required information to back the case. It takes a lot of effort to prove the merits of a medical malpractice law suit and since it involves a lot of expenses, most of the people prefer to settle for out-of-court offers. It easier for the aggrieved person to accept an apology and a modest sum of compensation money, than spend his/her time and money pursuing justice in the court of law - that may never happen in the end. What It Takes To Improve The Chances To Win Your Medical Malpractice Law Suit The claimant ne...

Facing Confidentiality and Electronic Medical Records Concerns

With more and more hospitals employing the electronic medical record as their standard data collection, storage and retrieval system, there are those who are concerned with the risks in the confidentiality and electronic medical records system. The old way of doing things required a lot of paperwork. This meant more office space was allotted for record keeping. This usually meant a filing cabinet with a key as its main security defense against other people. The talk of confidentiality and electronic medical records keeping true to that sense is only a hype, or fluke. The concerns of confidentiality and electronic medical records falling into the wrong hands are grossly exaggerated. To put these concerns on confidentiality and electronic medical records intrusive capability, the software developers have added several security measures to insure that only those who need to know about your information get it and the information that the doctor is reading is really about you: * ...

Medical Billing Courses

First things are always first. Even though medical billing has been named one of the fastest growing occupations in the medical field industry, this doesn't mean that it's that easy to get into. Before you can call yourself a true professional in medical billing in every sense of the word, first you must learn the ins and the outs of your chosen profession. Fortunately, medical billing courses are not hard to find. Just log into any major search engine and type the words "medical billing courses" and you should be able to find a long list of online programs for medical billing training. The biggest aspect of medical billing courses and training consists of learning medical terminology, numerical codes to ensure proper financial reimbursement, and health care records management skills. Health care records management skills are especially an integral aspect of medical billing courses since a major part of the medical biller's job is to keep paperwork and payments fl...