A Guide to Medical Staffing Insurance

Safe employee staffing is important in any professional setting, but it’s especially vital for the medical field. If you’re a medical staffer, your company runs the risk of being held accountable for the mistakes of the healthcare professionals and nurse practitioners you place in a job. 

To protect yourself and your agency, you need medical staffing insurance. 

But what does that entail? Let’s review. 

Business Insurance for Medical Staffers

The medical staffing business is particularly vulnerable to lawsuits. Dealing with healthcare professionals and patients across a variety of fields puts you at risk for claims from both the people you employ and the people your employees treat.

Medical staffing network insurance includes at least four major policies: 

1. General liability
2. Workers’ compensation
3. Professional liability
4. Cyber liability

General Liability

General liability insurance covers third-party damages, meaning damages that happen to people other than your employees. This policy is an essential coverage for all businesses because most of the time, the incidents are unavoidable accidents. Even then, they still come at a huge price.

Incidents that fall under general liability coverage include the following:

• Bodily harm or injury a person sustains on your business’ property
• Accidental damage you or your employees caused to someone else’s property
• Advertising injuries such as slander or trademark infringement

This insurance plan will help cover damage payments, attorney fees, and other legal costs, like secondary investigations, if applicable.

Workers’ Compensation

Every state besides Texas requires workers’ compensation insurance for medical staffing companies. Even if your state doesn’t require it, workers’ compensation insurance for medical staffing companies is an essential way you can shield your business and its employees from risk. 

It protects employees from workplace injuries and illnesses, which can all too easily occur when dealing with sick patients. Insurance coverage includes:

• Medical, on-going care, and recovery expenses for work-related injuries or illnesses
• Missed wage replacement while employees are out of work due to a covered injury or illness
• Disability benefits for severe work-related injuries that temporarily or permanently disable an employee
• Dependent support payments and funeral expenses when fatal injuries occur
• Liability expenses if your staffing company is sued over a work-related injury or illness

Professional Liability

In the medical world, professional liability insurance is often used interchangeably with malpractice insurance. Though you might not be directly responsible for the medical oversight, error, or negligence, by being responsible for the hire, you still have a significant legal obligation. If a patient chooses to take legal action, they can go after the provider and the employment agency responsible for hiring them.

That’s why medical malpractice insurance for staffing agencies is necessary. It not only covers physical injury, but claims of mental anguish. No matter if there’s a true accident, unfortunate misstep, or meritless claim, malpractice insurance will help cover legal fees, compensatory damages, and potential payouts.

These are some of the liabilities malpractice insurance will cover:

• Medical accidents – Mistakes happen in every line of work, and since every patient responds to methods of treatment differently, things can go wrong even if the provider followed all the proper protocols.
• Improper protocol – Failing to follow regulations and delayed treatment can result in claims of improper care.
• Negligence – Omissions happen regularly in healthcare and are usually cause for people to seek reparations. Instances of negligence include failure to take a patient’s medical history into account, incorrect diagnoses (misreading lab results), or surgical errors.

The Cost of Malpractice

The medical malpractice law firm Rosenbaum & Associates, found that the average cost of a malpractice payout over the past decade is $309,908. And those numbers are only increasing. This may be due to the fact medical errors are now the third highest cause of death in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins. And unfortunately, medical professional and nurse staffing issues are a core contributor to this rising statistic. For this very reason,it is essential that you understand not only how to start a nurse staffing agency, but also how to provide enough qualified practitioners in each setting. 

In the long run, having insurance coverage will be a cheaper alternative to the financial burden of a lawsuit.

Additional Coverage: Cyber Security Insurance

Insurance for medical staffing companies should include an additional cyber security policy if you, or the healthcare facility, use electronic systems to communicate sensitive information or store patient data. 

Cyber security insurance will help cover the following expenses:

• Notifying patients about a security breach
• Recovering and restoring compromised data
• Repairing damaged computer or software systems
• Installing fraud monitoring services
• Dealing with cyber extortion
• Legal fees associated with data breaches

Create a Plan with NOW Insurance

Whether you need medical staffing insurance or are looking for new policies to add to your plan, making sure you have adequate coverage for your company is essential.

So where do you go for that protection? 

 NOW Insurance can help.

The experienced team at NOW will walk you through exactly what policies your staffing agency needs, including general and professional liability, as well as cyber liability insurance. NOW Insurance will also recommend an individual insurance plan for healthcare practitioners, so you and your employees won’t have to worry about gaps in coverage. 

To learn more about customizable insurance for medical staffing companies, get in touch today.

Sources: 

1. Rosenbaum & Associates. A Comprehensive Look at Medical Malpractice Statistics. https://www.rosenbaumfirm.com/medical-malpractice-statistics.html
2. Johns Hopkins. Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us