Malpractice Insurance

Medical Doctor Associates is passionate about QUALITY, and one way the employee/owners demonstrate their dedication to quality is through their commitment to offer the best possible insurance for the providers who contract with MDA.

There are two different forms of malpractice insurance available to healthcare providers - "claims made " and "occurrence form". Occurrence Form insurance was the standard in the locum tenens industry through the 90’s. In 2000, when the insurance market hardened and occurrence form insurance was hard to find, many locum tenens companies changed to claims made policies. MDA worked with Medical Protective to create an occurrence form policy for MDA. Because Medical Protective recognizes MDA’s focus on quality, MDA has been able to offer Occurrence Form coverage since the inception of its business in 1987, a claim no other locum tenens firm can make.

Claims-made

Under a claims-made form policy, a medical incident must have happened and be reported to the insurance company while the policy is in force. Once the policy has been terminated, coverage exists only when a medical incident happens and is reported to the insurance company while the policy is in force. Once the policy has been terminated, coverage no longer exists. If coverage is desired for claims reported after the policy has been terminated, then an Extended Reporting Endorsement (known as a "tail") must be purchased. Claims-made policies often have aggregate limits (or the total limit of coverage) which are “retroactive” to the beginning of the policy. This means the aggregate limit must provide coverage for not only the policy period, but also all policy periods back to the retroactive date.

Occurrence Form

The occurrence form covers incidents that happen during the policy period without regard to when the claims are reported. Occurrence coverage provides protection for each policy period indefinitely. For this reason, the total coverage grows each year. Because of upheaval in the malpractice insurance market, occurrence coverage is becoming a rare commodity. MDA is the only national multi-specialty medical staffing organization that offers A++-ratedoccurrence form insurance to contracted providers, having provided this type of insurance since 1987.

Since occurrence form policies are written to provide coverage forever, the financial strength and history of the insurance company is very important. For this reason, MDA chose Medical Protective, the nation’s oldest medical malpractice insurer, as its insurance carrier. Medical Protective is licensed and admitted in all fifty states. This means the coverage is protected by each state’s Insurance Insolvency Guaranty Fund.

The best protection for all parties involved is one that protects the doctor, the hospital or healthcare organization, and the staffing firm, now and in the future, with no concerns about purchasing tail coverage.

Quality does make a difference.