A Negligence Malpractice Suit Can Ruin Your Career
Negligence Malpractice
This is a common sense concept that being sued for malpractice is not good for your career. In fact, if you are found guilty of negligence malpractice you could be barred, fired, lose all your patients and pay a mountain of legal expenses. Even if you manage to keep your job as a doctor, nurse or other medical professional such a lawsuit would reach the papers and make patients very wary about coming to you. Therefore, everyone in the medical field should have professional liability insurance to protect against malpractice litigation.
One organization that provides education, resources, insurance plans and decades of experience is the HPSO or Healthcare Providers Service Organization. This organization has been around for decades and is specialized for those in medicine. This is what you want to go with, an insurance company that specializes in your area of practice. The HPSO even has a legal team to help insured professionals fight lawsuits or reach out of court settlements, whichever is most appropriate. Sometimes a settlement is best, other times you may want to go to court.
For example, if you and your legal representative are fairly certain your odds in court are not good, an out of court settlement for the lowest possible amount will try to be reached. This is a way to keep the case quiet and settle things without a lot of expense or fuss. However if you are the victim of a frivolous or false lawsuit then you may end up in court to dispute the case. In some cases medical professionals are victims of con artists who should be, and often are, prosecuted for such fraud. Without a good legal representative in your corner you could be taken to the cleaners by a scammer like this.
However, if you don’t have adequate insurance coverage you are going to pay a fortune for legal costs and any settlement costs, fees or fines you have to pay. So make sure you hold a policy that protects you against malpractice litigation and helps you in the event a case ever does need to go to court. Most people with negligence malpractice insurance never need to use it. This is certainly a good thing and very heartening, but you never know if you are going to be in that small percentage who does need their professional liability coverage.