Medical Indemnity Insurance for Health Professionals in Australia

Registered healthcare professionals working in private practice in Australia are required to hold medical or professional indemnity insurance that complies with the ‘?PII Registration Standard?’ set by the relevant board.

The?AHPRA website? states that all health practitioners who undertake any form of practice in their respective profession(s) must have professional indemnity insurance (PII) arrangements that comply with the relevant registration standard, for all aspects of their practice.

*APHRA Website: https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Registration/Registration-Standards/PII.aspx

Furthermore,?AHPRA? goes on to state that the initial registration and annual renewal of registration requires a declaration that the health practitioner will not practice unless they have appropriate PII arrangement

Below is the List of Board specific registration standards

Under Section 38 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law each state and territory, must develop and recommend to Ministerial Council mandatory registration standards and any other standards relevant to the eligibility of individuals for registration in the profession.

How about if you maintain a Medical Centre?

It is essential for owners and practice managers of medical centres and day clinics to understand ‘who’ and ‘what’ is covered under their medical practice indemnity insurance policy. One of the most common questions asked is ‘why does the practice need a practice entity policy, when each doctor holds their own medical indemnity ‘personal’ policy?

Important information about medical practitioners’ indemnity Insurance:

• If you are a doctor practising by yourself with no other doctors, and you fully own the practice entity and employ a few staff who are always supervised, then your individual medical indemnity policy may be sufficient. This type of practice could be described as the traditional solo GP practice, Dr Smith T/As Dr Smith Pty Ltd, who employs a nurse and a receptionist. Make sure you check with your medical indemnity insurer to check your practice and staff are covered as each medical indemnity insurance policy differs.
• If you practice with other doctors, rent rooms to others, don’t fully own the entity, have staff which do healthcare in their own right (eg cosmetic procedures), then the chances are a medical malpractice policy may be required to cover the practice’s own medical indemnity exposures.

Managing Risks in Your Practice

As medical indemnity insurance providers in Australia, Tego Insurance is here to help you keep your practice safe and protected. Medical indemnity insurance is a critical component of ensuring good risk management and governance for a medical practice.

Healthcare risk management has always been focused on the critical role of patient safety while eliminating medical errors that can jeopardise a medical practitioner from achieving their main mission to help patients while protecting against financial liability. With the fast pace of healthcare innovation and technology, the fast pace of medical science, and its ever-changing legal, regulatory, political, and reimbursement environment, healthcare risk management has become much more complex.

Below are two important initial steps to manage and mitigate medical risk:

1. Risk Identification Practitioners are required to, first of all, identify and document potential factors causing risk. Just by identification, a medical practitioner can eliminate many of them. This exercise will help the practitioner to understand his/her practice from a greater depth from a business viewpoint. Below are some of the broader pointers to help practitioners identify risk:? Structural or asset related risks which involve base infrastructure to conduct practice.? Medico risks, involving doctor, nurse or other staff.? Cyber risks, which leads to the loss of important financial, taxation & patient record data.? Workforce-related risks, where a medical practitioner may face a situation related to employment matters as part of practice management.? Compensation or financial risk, where medical practitioners or the medical practice may face the financial burden of a civil claim brought by a patient or other stakeholder.
2. Risk Analysis & Evaluation

Post identifying the associated risks with the practice, medical practitioners need to carry on with the assessment stage. The assessment would help in drafting a framework for covering different aspects and ensure absolute risk coverage.? Budget allocation to revamp the necessary infrastructure.? Case analysis whenever any miss or nearly miss incident happens.? Assessing consequences with regards to reputational & financial damage, in the event of a cyber attack or healthcare-related complaint or claim.? Staffing requirement analysis, which also involves an adequate back-up plan in case of an adverse situation.

Allow Tego Insurance to help

Tego Insurance offers medical indemnity insurance, doctors indemnity insurance, gp medical indemnity insurance, medical practice insurance, medical malpractice insurance and more. We have a profound understanding of the Australian medical profession and the ever-changing healthcare industry. It’s this expertise that allows us to provide leading cover with more choice, innovation and greater flexibility. Contact us to find out more.

All content on this page has been written in a generic way, and has not been presented with any knowledge of your personal objectives or financial needs.