Aspects and importance of Medical Malpractice renewal

A key aspect of ensuring doctors have peace of mind with their medical malpractice renewal is to ensure that a timeous, effective and efficient renewal process is done professionally on an annual basis.

At MC De Villiers Brokers we notify doctors in writing  60 days prior to the renewal of their policy.

We notify so well in advance for the following reasons:

• The practice needs to attain practice statistics of the previous year, which form part of the renewal process and include the following information:
• • Total number of consultations
  • Total number of procedures
  • Income in both the public and private sectors or just the private sector
• If the practice has a claim open from a previous insurer, doctors will need to attain an updated claims history report to ascertain whether existing cases have being closed and or settled. Once all the claims are settled it is no longer necessary to attain the updated claims history report.
• If the practice has any material changes which need to be disclosed to an underwriting panel, this also forms part of the renewal process and will form part of the new terms and conditions of the policy.

Risks and challenges faced during the renewal process are:

• If the renewal was not done timeously, doctors will be uncovered, which is very high risk due to the fact that SA claims are increasing in both size of claim and number of claims. Insurers will not issue renewal terms and conditions until all outstanding requirements have being submitted.
• Half of the problem is that the doctor is not informed of what the process of renewal is, thus they are frustrated with the insurer when the information is requested or the renewal is not done timeously.

Once a quote is finalised, the doctor still needs to accept their quotation within the stipulated time frame or the doctor could be in for a surprise by receiving a double debit if he missed the collection date on premium.

The above are some guidelines of what to expect and the process that needs to be followed to ensure a streamlined process occurs on renewal.

The core reason for doctors taking out medical malpractice cover is to ensure that they are insured should they have an error or admission in practice and a claim arises. It is however imperative that all aspects of renewal are complied with to ensure an effective an efficient renewal takes place.