Professional Liability Insurance for Mental Health Technicians: What Does It Cover?
With many people struggling due to the effects of Covid-19, mental health technicians are more in demand than ever. If you’ve chosen this field of work, you need professional liability insurance to make sure you can have a satisfying long-term career. By protecting yourself from lawsuits, you’ll be able to avoid financial disasters in case a patient or their family decides to claim compensation for a professional mistake.
But what does this kind of insurance cover, and how can you find a reputable company? In this article, we will discuss what you can expect from your insurance policy and how to find the best option at a competitive price.
Professional Liability Insurance for Mental Health Technicians
Even though the institution you work in is likely to already have liability insurance, you will need to get your own policy to make sure you won’t run into issues or disputes with your employer. Insurance is important for every profession but especially one relating to the mental health field. People with severe mental illnesses can be unpredictable, and you may be faced with long, hard days, so you are likely to experience some unexpected situations over the course of your career.
The main purpose of liability insurance is to cover you in case you make a mistake that adversely affects one of your patients. In such a situation, the patient or their family can claim damages and start a lawsuit. It only takes one such event to ruin your career and your financial wellbeing. For this reason, it’s crucial that you’re adequately protected by a reputable insurance company that will provide a hassle-free experience.
High Limits
When you buy high-quality liability insurance, you will be covered for a large sum of money. Most medical claims are for six-figure amounts, but a good insurance policy will cover you for several million dollars. Getting coverage with high per occurrence and aggregate limits is important because you never know what kind of claim might be made against you.
When you start working for a business, they may have requirements on the limits of coverage they want you to have. You can choose whether you’d like to be insured beyond the minimum requirements. It might be a good idea to go a bit higher in a field where there are so many variables. Remember that this type of coverage is meant to protect you or your assets in case of a disaster, so it’s worth getting a solid policy. Your insurance provider can also give you guidance based on your business and specialty.
Coverage for Telehealth or Telemedicine Assignments
Sometimes, you might not see your patients in person but you’ll speak to them over the phone or a video chatting service, instead. This type of work has seen a rapid increase since the advent of COVID-19, and it’s likely that the trend will continue in the future. It can be advantageous because you can access more patients in a shorter time frame and give them the help they need.
Some people with mental illness may also find it less daunting to talk to you over the phone. A good insurance company will include telehealth services in their policies. While there isn’t an immediate threat to you or your patient when you’re not physically in the room with them, the potential for errors is still there, and you should check that your policy includes this kind of work.
License Defense Coverage
If you are sued for malpractice, you might risk losing your license. Mistakes can happen to anyone, and sometimes, the error might not be directly your fault. However, some patients or their families don’t take this into consideration, and they may try to get your license revoked. In such a case, you will need to rely on your professional liability insurance to cover you and protect you from losing your livelihood.
You may think that your employer’s policy will be enough, but the purpose of this is to protect the institution, not you personally. In addition, your employer’s insurance policy only applies to the workplace, so if you do any work outside of this, you won’t be protected. For this reason, you should get your own policy that can help you to keep your license safe over the long term.
Defense Costs
Defense costs are all the expenses related to defending yourself against a lawsuit. They might include court fees, investigations, the costs related to hiring your lawyer, and the costs of filing the necessary paperwork. Before you decide to purchase your liability insurance, make sure that this type of expense is covered.
Policies for mental health technicians may account for this in two different ways. Defense costs could be included in your coverage limit, or they could have a separate limit that’s different from the other costs. Although it might not seem relevant to your situation right now, it’s worth checking with your provider and making sure that this type of expense will be taken care of. A good insurance company will provide you with lawyers that specialize in your profession, ensuring you have the best defense available.
Sexual Misconduct Defense
Sexual assault or misconduct cases can be some of the most stressful and trying, so you should make sure that you’re adequately covered for them. They include everything from allegations of attempted rape to assault or battery to sexual contact like groping or fondling. Again, it might seem irrelevant to you, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, particularly because you will be working with severely ill people on a regular basis.
Mental health work is very rewarding, but it can also be extremely challenging at times. A good insurance policy will cover sexual misconduct, so you’ll be able to hire a lawyer and defend your case to the best of your ability.
HIPAA Coverage
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act relates to keeping your patients’ data safe and confidential. There are several situations in which a patient or family could start a lawsuit against you for this reason. Not only would you have to defend yourself, there could be fines and penalties from HIPAA. Some of the most common problems are the unauthorized sharing of information, a lack of encryption, or accessing PHI from an insecure location.
However, you may also encounter problems due to someone else’s actions. For example, you could have to defend yourself if your system gets hacked, your devices are stolen by a third party, or you lose your devices. Or you may have an office worker that is careless with patient information. It’s best to check that HIPAA violations are covered in your professional liability insurance.
Portable Coverage
Finally, one of the most important aspects of your liability insurance is that it covers you no matter where you go. Some mental health technicians work in the same business for many years while others have many different contracts with different employers, and float between a private practice, a hospital or a state agency. You might also be doing volunteer work or moonlighting assignments.
While your employer’s coverage will only be effective when you work for them, your own policy is fully portable, which means that you take it with you wherever you go. As long as you’re up to date on your payments, you’ll be protected no matter what type of mental health technician work you do.
Choosing a Great Provider
Now that you know why professional liability insurance is so important for mental health technicians, you might wonder how to find a policy that will provide the best protection possible at a competitive price. To decide on an insurance company, check that they have a good reputation, your insurance can be tailored to your needs, they will be around when you need them most, and they price their plans reasonably.
A Good Reputation and Strong Values
Strong core values are important for any type of business you interact with but especially one that will be so important to your future. Your insurance company can make or break your career and financial future in case of emergency, so make sure that they are reputable before signing up. You can check the website and other online sources for reviews and visit their ‘About Us’ page to find out more.
At NOW Insurance, we pride ourselves on our values and our ability to connect providers with insurance that is Simple. Fast. Affordable. Getting liability insurance can seem like an unnecessary hassle for a small business or an individual, but it’s so important to be protected for worst-case scenarios. By making the process simple and affordable for our customers, we hope to be able to help as many people as possible protect their future.
Insurance Tailored to Your Needs
Everyone’s situation is different, so you will need to look for a policy that suits your needs. A high-quality insurance company will offer you different options such as short-term coverage or optional add-ons. The easiest way to find out whether you can tailor your policy to your individual situation is to check with the insurance company’s customer service team.
Great Customer Service and 24-Hour Access
As a mental health technician, you have a lot of responsibilities, and you don’t want to spend your time worrying about insurance. For this reason, your policy should be easy to set up. Find out whether the company has an efficient system in place and how long it will take for your policy to come through.
Here at NOW Insurance, you can get a quote in less than three minutes on our easy-to-use application, and your certificate will be immediately accessible upon purchase. As on online company, our customer service is easy to reach and extremely responsive.
Reasonable Pricing
Sometimes, policies are unnecessarily expensive if they don’t go directly from the insurance company to the consumer. When you use NOW Insurance, you can be sure that there’s no middle man involved, and you can access liability insurance for healthcare professionals at the best price possible. In this way, you’re optimally protected, but you’re not overpaying for the services we offer.
When Should I Get Insurance?
If you haven’t set up an insurance policy yet, you can get started at any time. Most professionals recommend that you do this as soon as possible at the start of your career, but it’s never too late. Many plans are flexible and tailored to your unique situation. No matter what your plans are and how long you’ve been working, you’ll be able to find a suitable policy.
Like other healthcare professionals, mental health technicians need professional liability insurance. This can protect you during a lawsuit no matter where you work or what type of assignments you do. A good policy covers telemedicine, defense costs, sexual misconduct, and HIPAA cases. It will also be portable, so you don’t need to renew it when you change your job or do volunteer work.
To find out more about our flexible policies and how we can help you, get in touch with us. We will be more than happy to assist you either through our contact form or on the phone.
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