A-Naturopathic Medical Malpractice Insurance

[Guest guest]

and others,The question of malpractice is a good one. If you accept insurance as part of your practice it is not an option, it is a necessity. I've been practicing a little over two years, and have learned the hard way on the insurance issue.When I began practice, only 30-40% of new and existing patients in my local market had insurance. As a result, I chose not to get on panels. Now, 90-95% of new and existing patients have insurance. Admittedly, some of these patients' policies have coverage for non-network providers (like me) and can take my service summary (receipt for services) and send it to their insurance company and receive payments. However, as a general rule, this is not the case. Currently, I am reinstating my malpractice insurance due to the insurance panel requirement. NCMIC offered me a very "low" annual premium last year. Since the insurance business operates on "risk assessment", risk is lower if you have fewer patients.However, one of my associates had a 200-300% increase in premiums from NCMIC during her second year --and this was for part-time practice. My advice ...understand your market (do you need to accept insurance as a new practitioner in order to attract your required number of new patients/service existing patients?) and ask the right questions. Although your carrier can't tell you how much your premium will increase, they can give past averages. You need to budget for these increases. Keep in mind, if you are an AANP member, you can get a 10% discount from NCMIC.Also, I thought I could effectively do insurance billings on my own. This is OK if you have only a few claimss/month. Believe me, if you have any volume of claims (i.e. patients), a billing company is worth the price--unless you want to take on-going classes in billing and coding. It does not take a large number of claims to eat up alot of your time in rebillings, and attempting to collect receivables. Shop around for the best service and pricing for what you need.If you have other questions, feel free to contact me outside the group. Benton, NDBattle Ground, WA.(Family Practice)