Do I still need malpractice?

[hightower]

Hi all, I have a question about malpractice. I left hospitalist practice almost exactly 2 years ago. I worked in addiction medicine (suboxone treatment) for the last 2 years (left in Nov 2022).
Now I am trying to avoid going back to any medical jobs that require treatment/prescribing/altering treatment plans, etc. I am looking at doing medicare health risk assessments part time as well as a part time consultant gig at a plasma center. The plasma center would require zero patient contact. Just looking at lab results and deciding whether or not the patient can proceed with donation or if they need to go to their PCP or whatever. The medicare gig would be just gathering information and doing an H&P.
I currently do not have any active malpractice insurance because I am currently unemployed. Here are my questions...
1. Am I still covered for anything that may come up from my previous job prescribing Suboxone? I am assuming I have tail coverage, but does that require that I maintain some sort of malpractice during the tail coverage period?
2. Do I need to carry malpractice for these two new gigs?

Thanks so much in advance for any help you can all offer!

[CordMcNally]

1.) It depends if it was an occurance vs. claims-made policy. If it was a claims-made policy then you may need (and not currently have) tail coverage.
2.) I am not an expert but I would think that if you are going to have any patient contact or anything considered patient care (and both of thosewould to me) then you should probably have some kind of malpractice insurance.

[Random1]

If you are going to work for a plasma center using your medical degree, you may have some liability for misdiagnosing or treatment errors as a result of your decisions. This would be important issue to iron out prior to employment.

You are crazy to go bare after being a hospitalist or physician for a suboxone center. I can't think of a more highly unstable population of patients who are litigenous for poor outcomes.

[Tim]

“ I am assuming I have tail coverage”. If your assumption is correct, you then you don’t have to pay a different policy. See 1) in the first response above..

[hightower]

It appears that one of the side gigs I'm applying for now (the Medicare assessments) does provide malpractice, which I didn't realize at first. I'm still not sure I want to take on that position though as I'm not crazy about doing H&P's in people's homes, even though it would only be a few days per month.

For the record, I did not plan on going without insurance right now. I was laid off from my suboxone job unexpectedly so this all sort of happened quickly and unexpectedly.

It's been almost exactly 2 years since I did my last shift as a hospitalist, which I see as my most risky medical practice. Forgive my ignorance if this isn't true, but isn't the 2 year mark important for no longer being at risk of malpractice claims from that line of work? Isn't that why tail coverage generally lasts 2 years?

My suboxone clinic work seems much less risky to me because I was only managing one medication/one diagnosis. But, I realize the risk is still there. I guess in my mind, I was just looking forward to the 2 year mark since my last hospitalist shift so much that I wasn't thinking much about tail coverage for my suboxone job too.

If I take on the above mentioned job doing Medicare assessments and they are providing malpractice insurance, would that suffice for anything that may arise from my 1 year and 8 months at the suboxone clinic? If not, do I need to try to buy insurance separately for that? I suppose these are questions better asked of the company.

I also need to check if my previous policy was a "claims made" or "occurrence" policy as Cord suggested above.

[CordMcNally]

After doing EMS ride alongs, I can strongly confirm that I have no intentions of ever going and doing medical things in people’s homes.

[wideopenspaces]

It appears that one of the side gigs I'm applying for now (the Medicare assessments) does provide malpractice, which I didn't realize at first. I'm still not sure I want to take on that position though as I'm not crazy about doing H&P's in people's homes, even though it would only be a few days per month.

For the record, I did not plan on going without insurance right now. I was laid off from my suboxone job unexpectedly so this all sort of happened quickly and unexpectedly.

It's been almost exactly 2 years since I did my last shift as a hospitalist, which I see as my most risky medical practice. Forgive my ignorance if this isn't true, but isn't the 2 year mark important for no longer being at risk of malpractice claims from that line of work? Isn't that why tail coverage generally lasts 2 years?

My suboxone clinic work seems much less risky to me because I was only managing one medication/one diagnosis. But, I realize the risk is still there. I guess in my mind, I was just looking forward to the 2 year mark since my last hospitalist shift so much that I wasn't thinking much about tail coverage for my suboxone job too.

If I take on the above mentioned job doing Medicare assessments and they are providing malpractice insurance, would that suffice for anything that may arise from my 1 year and 8 months at the suboxone clinic? If not, do I need to try to buy insurance separately for that? I suppose these are questions better asked of the company.

I also need to check if my previous policy was a "claims made" or "occurrence" policy as Cord suggested above.

I'm sorry you're going through all this but I'm glad to see you back here! My understanding is that families have like 6 years to sue after a family member dies due to a medical error/issue but I could be very off about that. I just think I remember an attending in residency saying that 🤔 whatever you do next in the medical arena, definitely get malpractice. I went through a lawsuit and it was no fun. Find out if the suboxone place included tail insurance, otherwise you need that too.

[hightower]

So, I reached out to my former employers insurance broker asking about tail coverage and remarkably they wrote back to me right away. Here was their reply about my coverage:

"You were on the policy on a shared limit basis on a claims made policy. You can not purchase a tail as you didn’t have a separate limit of coverage. If a claim was to arise after you are gone you are covered if it was during your employment."

So, that's a big relief. I want to verify the same from my previous hospitalist policy too. So that's what I'll be working on tomorrow.

Assuming I'm good there too, the next thing will be to decide on coverage for any other "doctoring" jobs I get in the future.

Thanks to everybody for your help. I love this forum/online community. It's such a wonderful resource.

[NumberWhizMD]

Knowing someone who does those medicare assessments, I definitely would accept the insurance if they cover it and you choose to do the job. It definitely can be a little dodgy, especially as many of the people who sign up for these assessments are the people who want the $50 gift card or whatever monetary compensation they get from this. Many patients do not ever see a doctor, and you may sometimes be assessing someone who really needs to be hospitalized.

All that to say, there is definitey some risk there, even if you are "only" there to do H&Ps.

[hightower]

Thanks for that insight NumberWhizMD, very helpful to know!

[White.Beard.Doc]

Each state has their own rules as far as the statute of limitations for a medical malpractice lawsuit. What is the statute of limitations in your state?