The DPC NP
The DPC NP Podcast is a biweekly audio program that offers valuable insights and firsthand experiences pertaining to the management of a Direct Primary Care clinic owned by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Esteemed guests will articulate and elucidate their individual journeys in navigating the complexities inherent in establishing and operating a Direct Primary Care practice.
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The DPC NP
Shield Your Future: The NP's Guide to Insurance Protection
Protecting your healthcare practice requires far more than simply checking the insurance box. In this eye-opening episode, former commercial insurance broker Mark Price shares critical insights about medical malpractice insurance that every nurse practitioner and physician assistant should understand before it's too late.
The conversation dives deep into the crucial differences between occurrence and claims-made policies, revealing why the seemingly cheaper option might actually cost you everything in the long run. Mark explains how policy limits actually work, including the hidden danger of policies that include defense costs within your coverage limits rather than paying them separately. With legal expenses easily reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars in extended cases, this single detail could leave you personally liable even when you thought you were protected.
Telehealth creates another layer of complexity, as demonstrated by a sobering real-world case where a provider's insurance denied coverage after treating a college student across state lines. Contrary to what many believe, DPC practices may actually face increased liability compared to traditional models due to their comprehensive approach and frequent use of text messaging and remote communications.
Beyond malpractice coverage, Mark outlines why business owner policies covering cyber liability and employee dishonesty have become essential safeguards. For multi-provider practices, he explains how key person insurance and buy-sell agreements can protect both the business and personal finances should the unthinkable happen. As Mark aptly puts it, "insurance is designed to provide sleep" - the peace of mind that comes from knowing your personal assets and professional future are properly protected.
Whether you're launching a new practice or assessing your current coverage, this conversation provides the knowledge you need to make truly informed decisions about the policies protecting your livelihood. Don't wait for a claim letter to discover the gaps in your coverage.
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Welcome to Season 2 of the DPCNP Podcast. I'm Amanda Price and I'm thrilled to be back, bringing you even more insights, strategies and success stories from nurse practitioners and physician assistants leading the way in direct primary care. This season, we'll dive deeper into real world experiences, innovative practice models and the latest updates in the DPC movement. Whether you're just exploring DPC or already running your own practice, this podcast is here to support and inspire you. Let's get started. Hey everybody, welcome back to the DPC NP, where we empower nurse practitioners and physician assistants, building successful, patient-centered practices.
Speaker 1:Today's episode is a special one. I am joined by someone who knows the world of insurance inside and out and also happens to know me pretty well. My husband, Mark, is a former commercial insurance broker of 24 years and he has been helping me with my malpractice and business insurance coverage since I opened my practice in 2007, and we are excited that he is going to share his experience and information with you guys. Today we are diving into what every nurse practitioner and physician assistant needs to know about malpractice insurance, especially those of us running our own clinics From understanding coverage types to avoiding common pitfalls. Mark's insights will help you make informed, confident decisions for your practice.
Speaker 2:Mark welcome to the show. Hi everybody, Thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1:So my first question to you, mark, is let's just start with the basics. What exactly is medical malpractice or professional liability insurance, and why is it a non-negotiable for NPs and PAs?
Speaker 2:That's a really great question to start off with. You know, insurance is designed to protect you from the risks that you face in any profession, and especially in the medical field, where you're treating the health care and the health of your patients, and so you need that insurance to protect you in the medical field, where you're treating the health care and the health of your patients, and so you need that insurance to protect you in the event that you make poor decisions or you make any mistakes that come up that were not planned, and it protects you financially from lawsuits.
Speaker 1:OK, great. So why is it dangerous to shop for malpractice insurance based only on price?
Speaker 2:for malpractice insurance based only on price, and that's really a common mistake that a lot of business owners make is in my 24 years of doing commercial insurance. So often business owners look at the bottom line and what is this going to cost me. But there's so much more to it. There's so many nuts and bolts that go with that. You have to look, first and foremost, the carrier that you're looking at, or carriers. Are they admitted or are they non-admitted? Meaning a non-admitted is a surplus lines carrier, an admitted carrier. Those carriers most people are familiar with Travelers, liberty Mutual and the non-admitted carriers, the surplus lines carriers, the Lloyds of London and others.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, the admitted carriers. Every state has a guarantee fund and these admitted carriers, every state has a guaranteed fund and these admitted carriers are protected under that guaranteed fund, meaning if the carrier were to ever go belly up or go out of business, it would leave all of their policyholders without insurance. So the guaranteed fund protects those policyholders. In the event that the carrier does go out of business, the guaranteed fund will pay any open claims or existing claims that may come up, whereas a non-admitted carrier or surplus lines carriers. So these carriers are not protected under the state guarantee fund, so the guaranteed coverage. So if they go out of business you're out on a limb. You don't have any coverage in the event of a claim.
Speaker 2:Secondly, many of these carriers don't have as broad a coverages as the admitted carriers do. And thirdly, you pay taxes. With those surplus lines or not admitted carriers you have to pay taxes you. Also, these not admitted carriers do not provide financing on your premium. So if you have 10 or 12,000 in premium, you have to either pay that up annually in full or you have to pay finance charges to finance that throughout the policy period. But the big key there is you should check ratings with any carrier, whether it's an admitted or non-admitted carrier. The big rating agency is AM Best and they will look at the financials of every insurance carrier annually to see what their financial stability and they rank those from an A++ all the way down to an F. So you really want to try to stay with a carrier that's A-rated Worst case maybe a B+ but stay away from those carriers that are below that rating. Just stay with the A-rated carriers if possible.
Speaker 1:What are the practical differences between working with an admitted carrier like Liberty Mutual versus a non-admitted one like Lloyd's of London A?
Speaker 2:couple of things come to mind. One is your customer service. So often in my experiences I found that customer service was very easy to work with. I always had someone I could get on the line if I had a question about a claim or policies or coverages with an admitted carrier Not admitted carrier. Many times it was hard to get somebody on the phone If I had problems with a policy or certificate of insurance or even getting coverages extended. It was a challenge with non-admitted carriers. The other part of that is if you have a claim and I've had to place different clients with a non-admitted carrier because they had terrible claims history. They reported a lot of claims so I ended up having to place these businesses with a non-admitted carrier and dealing with their claims handling and through that process of getting paid from a non-admitted carrier was always more challenging than with an admitted carrier.
Speaker 1:What's the difference between an occurrence policy and a claims made policy?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question. So these are the two types of policies that you can buy claims made and occurrence. So an occurrence policy and this is the more ideal policy for medical providers, because the occurrence policy will cover any claim that occurred during the period of coverage, even if the claim happens after the policy expires. So let me give you an example. Let's say you have a policy that renews January 1st and it's going to run 12 months, so it expires December 31st. So during that 12-month period you treat a patient and after that policy ends, you change and go to a completely different carrier. Well, let's say, six months later, that patient sues you that you treated in June of 2024, and now, with that occurrence policy, that policy will pick up that claim and pay the settlement, the legal expenses and all of that.
Speaker 2:Claims made policies are very different. They will only cover the provider or the insured while the policy is in effect. As soon as that policy expires, the medical provider is no longer covered. So let's take that same case scenario. You have a policy that renews January 1st 2025 that expires December 31st 2025. You move to a new carrier in 2026. Six months later, a patient that you treated in 2025 sues you for your treatment and unless you purchase a tail, that goes with that policy. It only provides coverage if the claim is filed during the policy, so that could be really problematic in the future.
Speaker 1:Why might a claims-made policy seem cheaper at first but end up costing more in the long run? And then, what do you mean by tail coverage?
Speaker 2:So the claims-made policy is going to be cheaper simply because, historically, claims do not occur in the policy period of a year, especially medical claims. Historically, on average, it is shown that a lawsuit will occur 16.5 months after the treatment. Okay, so the claims made policy. So the claims made policy when you get a quote from a claims made policy is always going to be cheaper because that policy only provides coverage during the term of that policy. So if claim is brought about on the policy after it expires, then you don't have coverage. So naturally it's going to be cheaper than an occurrence, because an occurrence will provide coverage years after the policy expires. So that's why many carriers provide claims made policy is cheaper.
Speaker 2:Now the tail on a claims made policy when that policy expires. If you continue with the same policy for the next year in the same carrier, you don't need to purchase the tail. The tail only comes about if you move to a different carrier and you want to extend coverage to that old claims-made policy. You have to purchase an extension, or what they call a tail, and it's for another 12-month period it will be. The price can vary just depending upon the size of the practice. And then each year that you renew that tail the price gets cheaper and cheaper because the exposure is less and less each year. So by year three or four your premiums will be considerably lower, simply because the possibility of a claim coming about is very minimal okay.
Speaker 1:So let me understand this, because I'm just trying to dumb this down a little bit, since I don't understand insurance lingo. But if we took out a policy between January 1st and December 31st for a claims made policy and then January 1st of the next year, we're sued for something that happened during the year that we had coverage. We won't be covered if it's claims made, only if it's occurrence made.
Speaker 2:So the claims made policy if you stay with the same policy, it will be covered. It's only if you cancel that policy the following year, in 2026, and you go with a different carrier, you will need to purchase a tail to go with that. It's only needed if you leave and move the policy to a different carrier.
Speaker 1:Okay, In terms of policy limits and legal risk. What do the terms per occurrence and aggregate limits mean, and how do those affect real-world coverage? And what happens if a claim settlement exceeds the policy's limits and who is responsible? Great question.
Speaker 2:So when you look at a policy, one of the first things you'll see after you see the named insured and the carrier that's writing the policy, it's going to show your limits and that will look something like, typically, a $1 million per occurrence and a $3 million aggregate, or $1 million per occurrence and a $1 million, the insurance company is going to provide you up to $1 million per occurrence on that policy in that policy period, with a maximum amount throughout that policy period of up to $3 million or $6 million. So if you have three $1 million claims in a policy period in that policy you'll be covered. If you have four $1 million claims in that policy period, you will not have enough coverage. So that is definitely something to consider when you're looking at insurance and the size of your clinic. You have four $1 million claims in that policy period, you will not have enough coverage. So that is definitely something to consider when you're looking at insurance and the size of your clinic and the type of exposure and type of practice that you're performing. Another thing to really consider and look at and again, this is why please do not, if you leave away with anything today, do not just look at price because, again looking at your carrier type is it admitted or not admitted? Another thing to look at, and it's very important because I've looked at several policies out there Some policies will have the defense costs built into that limit.
Speaker 2:So let's take that $1 million per occurrence limit. Some policies will include the defense costs inside that limit of $1 million. So let's take an example. Let's say you're sued and the courts award the settlement of $750,000. And because on average a medical claim can take up to around an average of 27 and a half months to settle, so you can incur a lot of legal expense fees during that time because lawyers do not come cheap. So let's say that the settlement is awarded at $750,000 and the attorney fees are $200,000. So let's say that the settlement is $750,000 and your legal expenses are $300,000 because the claim took so long. So now you're over the limits of $1 million. You can be held liable personally for any amounts over the $1 million limit that was settled.
Speaker 1:I know you had mentioned to me about some insurance policies that don't have a separate coverage for legal expenses outside of the million dollars, and then some are included. How are we able to differentiate to make sure that we don't get a policy that is also excluding legal fees in that $1 million coverage?
Speaker 2:So when you look through your policy, it will show somewhere in that policy that your legal, your defense costs are either built into the limit or outside of the limit. And we're going to list some of the carriers later down in this interview some of the common carriers that we got quotes from and I reviewed their policies and we'll talk about some of those carriers that we got quotes from and I reviewed their policies and we'll talk about some of those. But it's just something that you do need to look at. When looking at that Again, just do not go based on price.
Speaker 1:Okay. So how does your specialty or the procedures you perform influence your insurance rates, and what risks do you run if you leave procedures like IV therapy and aesthetics off of your insurance application? And one more question what steps should a provider take before adding new procedures to their scope of practice?
Speaker 2:Those are all great questions, so we'll take the first one. How do the procedures and specialty influence insurance rates? You know insurance companies have this huge book that they go by. It's a rating system that has all their different codes and I know medical providers are used to different codes and that's exactly what underwriters use for insurance. They look at the different types of practices that are applying and they apply those rates to the policy based on revenue or number of providers, square footage in some cases, and that determines their premium. They also look at the types of procedures that you do, like IV therapy and aesthetics.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm sure you recall back a few years ago when you added aesthetics to your practice, your current provider at that time would not extend coverage to cover aesthetics, so we had to go outside of that and find another carrier, and it was not an easy process. We did ultimately find a carrier. It was more expensive than your other practice but we were able to secure that coverage. But there are other things aesthetics and IV therapy. Those are things that will affect your premiums and you definitely need to communicate with your carrier and your agent or broker when adding these services, at your renewal or throughout the year, let's say the middle of the year, in the summer or fall, you decide you want to add aesthetics or IV therapy to your practice. You please reach out to your agent or your broker or your insurance provider and make sure that that coverage will extend to cover those new procedures that you plan to put in place.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk about telemedicine. So you know, telehealth is growing rapidly and they have relaxed a lot of legalities and restrictions on telehealth. What legal pitfalls should providers be aware of, especially around state licensure, and can you share an example of a telemed case that went wrong due to cross-state care?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. If you provide care to patients in the state where you're not licensed, you can face legal consequences or be uncovered by your policy. And I do know of a case where a provider treated a patient via telemed. This patient moved to another state to attend college and then the patient later called the doctor. He thought he had the flu. So the provider called in medicine for him for the flu and later he went to the ER and was treated for meningitis and had brain damage. So then the provider was shocked to learn that the insurance carrier denied coverage since the provider treated the patient in another state.
Speaker 1:Well, that's kind of scary because we probably all do that and we can't get licenses in every single state, especially our college-age patients that are going out of state for college and they still want to utilize telehealth services. So how do we make sure we get a carrier that will cover us?
Speaker 2:It's very possible that your current carrier will provide and extend coverage to cover you in other states for telemed. It's just you need to make sure that you've notified your provider of all the services that you provide in the states where you provide it.
Speaker 1:Okay and tell every patient out of state to just go to the ER? I don't think so. We'll just reach out to my. I hope you've got my insurance taken care of in that respect, okay. So what role does the insurance company play with a claim? I don't like that. What role does the insurance company play when a claim is filed, and what happens if the judgment exceeds your coverage limits? How vulnerable are your personal assets?
Speaker 2:So the role that the insurance company plays when a claim is filed is, once you file that claim, then you're going to be assigned a claims adjuster. That claims adjuster is going to either call you or come by and visit depends on if they're local or not and they're going to take a statement and they're going to pull medical records and, naturally, the letter that you received from the attorneys for the suit and then that will be your go-to person going forward. That your contact. Through that process. There could be depositions and all types of things through that process. Now let's going back to the limits again in your policy. We kind of hit on this earlier. When you have those limits, you always want to make sure that you have adequate limits for what you're doing, for the size of your practice.
Speaker 2:And there's really no one that can tell you. What are you comfortable with. You know we currently have 1 million 6 million and we've had those limits for many, many years and I feel it's adequate. But you do need to be aware that, again, if in a lawsuit those limits are exhausted, they can seek restitution personally from your personal assets bank accounts, retirement accounts, real estate. They can even garnish your wages in some states. So you just need to be aware of that.
Speaker 1:I think one thing that really hit me when you were talking earlier about this, before we started recording, is specifically when you said that whatever is outside of the $1 million coverage doesn't mean that we don't owe that right. It means that the insurance covers up to $1 million, but then if the lawsuit closes, or what's the word, the lawsuit settles for more than the million dollars, then you have to figure out how to pay the rest of that, isn't that right?
Speaker 2:If the claimant decides and chooses to come after you for the balance of that, that is possible. Yes.
Speaker 1:Here's the next question that we're all looking forward to hearing about. Who are some of the most trusted insurance providers and brokers for NPs and PAs, and have you worked with companies like CM&F, berksy or NSO, and what tips do you have for picking the right one?
Speaker 2:Sure, so a list of the handful of carriers that we've looked at is CM&F and understand they are the broker. They're the broker that uses and writes the policy with MedPro, which is a Berkshire Hathaway company. There's a couple of these carriers on this list that are with Berkshire Hathaway and, by the way, this is Warren Buffett's insurance companies. Warren Buffett has a whole bunch of insurance companies, including Geico, that he has owned for many, many years. They're all very, very financially stable, rated A++. So CM&F is the broker they use. Medpro Berkshire is another one that I've not used, but it is also a Berkshire Hathaway company.
Speaker 2:The one difference you'll have with Berksy over CM&F we go through CM&F as the broker and then they write it on their policy with Berkshire Hathaway MedPro. With Berksy, you work directly with the carrier, so you could potentially save some money by going that route. Another one is NSO Nurses Service Organization. They also write a good policy. And then Baxter Associates is another one. We looked at that one last year as well. But these are all good and many of these will give you the option in the application process to choose between an occurrence-made policy and a claims-made policy and, just again as a recap, your occurrence policy is going to be a little higher premium, but remember you never have to purchase a tail if you move from that carrier to another carrier. But you do have that option and I would always advise to go with an occurrence made policy.
Speaker 1:Thanks for that information. In regards to volunteering our medical services, for instance, I volunteer at camp every year. Services, for instance, I volunteer at camp every year. And also I have friends that are not patients that will ask me medical advice. Does the medical policy extend to those kinds of medical services?
Speaker 2:It really depends on the carrier, but you do need to check with your carrier before you start volunteering your medical services. Now, keep in mind most or all policies will extend coverage in medical emergencies and natural disasters, but, like in your case, or if you're working, if you choose to work at a camp or you volunteer your time at a hospital or low-income clinic you know inner-city clinic. You do need to confirm with your carrier that volunteering your services is provided under your policy.
Speaker 1:For nurse practitioners who have to work with collaborating physicians what is the malpractice coverage checklist they must go over and what's the risk if your collaborating physician is not properly insured? Great, question.
Speaker 2:So you are contracting with this collaborating physician to oversee your medical records and of course, every contract is different. Every state is different, but in Tennessee, for example, we have a collaborating physician that oversees a percentage of your charting and your notes. We don't know how thorough of a job that person really does, so you want to make sure that you add them to your medical malpractice. You will add them to your medical malpractice insurance and it's going to cost you some additional premium, but at least you're covered and please, please, make certain that they add you your clinic as an additional insured on his or her policy. That way, if they make a mistake and let's just say you get audited and they have not been doing a thorough job, their policy will extend coverage to protect you if you're sued, sued and it doesn't go against your policy. So always make sure that you have that collaborating physician at your clinic as an additional insured to their policy.
Speaker 1:I have a friend that was advised that he should just get insurance based on what the state limits are. Do you think that's good advice?
Speaker 2:So the states have limits on these types of lawsuits, but you never know what the full outcome is going to be of a lawsuit. There may be a gross negligence involved on the part of the provider or a provider within the clinic, and these settlements can. There can be additional charges and settlements in addition to the payout, so you always want to make sure that you have adequate limits to protect yourself and the clinic.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like DPC clinics are less likely to have malpractice lawsuits versus an insurance-based clinic just because we see less patients and we're more customer relational, and so therefore maybe our insurance policy doesn't have to be so bold and eccentric?
Speaker 2:No, not at all. If anything, there actually is more exposure because you in a traditional fee-for service clinic, a patient comes in the door, they're seen by a nurse, there's a questionnaire that's filled out and then the nurse passes that off to the medical provider. The medical provider then follows up and meets with the patient, versus DPC, where so much of that is done via telemed, it's FaceTime, it's text message. And again I go back to the case with the doctor who treated the boy that was in another state for the flu. He treated him based on the symptoms that he was aware of.
Speaker 2:And so I think a DPC clinic has more, actually more exposure than a fee-for-service clinic, where patients are coming in on a regular basis and they're kind of I hate to say forced to come in to be seen, whereas DPC it's probably a lot more lax and therefore there could be more room for something to come up later. And another thing that's concerning is with this DPC the patients look at their provider as an all-inclusive, do-it-all specialist, so they're doing all of it and so often they think that you can fix it for everything. And that's not always the case. There are specialists out there that treat for different types of conditions, and so it's very important that the providers of these DPC clinics put it in their wording of their agreements and on their social media and websites that they are treating the patient for the conditions that are presented, and then they will make recommendations if that patient needs to see a specialist. But it's really important to communicate that with the patients.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is probably my biggest concern is that patients are reluctant to go outside of the DPC clinic for care because they pay for our services and we're able to spend so much more time with them that they don't recognize the need to go outside of their DPC provider, and so I guess that would probably set us up for the potential of a lawsuit if we missed something that was out of our scope of practice. All right, so, beyond medical malpractice, what does a business owner's policy cover that your medical malpractice insurance doesn't, and should every NP or PA owned practice have a business owner policy?
Speaker 2:Yes, so the medical malpractice or also called a professional liability policy covers the providers and the team within the clinic for the medical practice. A business owner policy protects the assets of the business the copiers, the phone systems, even the money that is collected through employee dishonesty. So the business owner policy covers your building, your property inside the building. It can also include cyber liability and this is probably one of the largest growing claims in the industry is cyber liability. You know people hack into your system and clinics are gathering very vital information on their patients social security numbers, credit card information, health information, hipaa information and if someone hacks into your computer system and gets that information, then that can be very costly. I know of a restaurant chain that this happened and it was well over a hundred thousand dollars of damages that were that was paid out for that restaurant. So you have to be very careful with that. So the business owner policy pays for all of that. Also, if you have automobiles that are titled to the business, those can be covered under commercial insurance policy as well. But do not put your personal titled car insured with your business, because there's no insurable interest between the car that's titled to a person personally and the business.
Speaker 2:Again, going back to the employee dishonesty and I've known a lot of clinics that this has happened. An employee took money and happened. You know, an employee took money and it was later discovered that the employee took thousands and thousands of dollars and so you want to make sure you have coverage for that. I've been a part of a claim where the business had a name and the employee lived in another town 30 minutes away, went into the bank, created a business with the acronyms of that other business where they worked, and then they opened up a bank account, paid a hundred dollars to the state to create that business under that acronym of that, and then they were taking checks from that business where they worked over to that bank account their personal bank account and depositing those funds into that bank account. So it's very important to have employee dishonesty coverage and the cyber liability. Another coverage is workers' compensation. That covers your employees that are working in the clinic and that varies by state, so you'll have to look at that as well.
Speaker 1:So if a provider is just now launching their DPC clinic or their aesthetics practice, what should be the first three steps that they take regarding malpractice coverage?
Speaker 2:First, I would get online and contact all of the carriers that we listed and even others that you may find. There are some providers that are very regional. They're not nationwide but they're very regional. I know of a provider that's in Vermont and they only cover practices that are in Vermont. So but get quotes from every one of these carriers, because they're all going to be different and they're all going to have different policies and they're always they're all going to have different premiums and just look at that and see what kind of ratings they have. Again, do not just base it on price. You want to look at all the different coverages and look at the ratings, see how their claims are being paid.
Speaker 2:Insurance is designed to protect you and provide coverage when you need it. You know a lot of people say, well, you know it's not a big deal. Well, nothing is a big deal until something happens. And when something happens and you get that letter, if and when you get that letter from an attorney that says you're being sued, that's what insurance is for. It's there to provide sleep and it's there to provide protection and not be worried about what's to come.
Speaker 1:You know, I never had the luxury of being able to just pick the cheapest policy or anything, because you were always there to make sure we had the best policy, which I'm very appreciative of.
Speaker 1:Don't get me wrong. So I can completely understand when some of my nurse, practitioner and PA friends out there want to go with the cheapest coverage because, you know, maybe they've had their clinic for many years and they've never had a claim Never. I mean I've been in business 18 years. I've had one claim and that's only because I was included in a claim of another entity that was actually being sued by my patient. But I was called into it, so I was indirectly involved and we ended up getting dismissed from it. But that's the only time that I've ever had to use my malpractice insurance. But that does bring up. A good point is that, even though I wasn't directly the one that was sued, I was named in this massive suit that this patient's lawyer had called into and if I didn't have an appropriate malpractice insurance coverage, then I would have had to pay out of pocket for my lawyer, even though I was not the one at fault. And that's the thing.
Speaker 2:The attorneys are going to name everyone in that lawsuit that had anything. Even if you knew the patient's name, you're going to be named in that lawsuit. I can't even remember how many multiple clinics and providers were named in that initial lawsuit, but there were 20,700 and something in legal expenses on just your part alone of going back over 18 or 20 months I can't remember how long that was but just having that peace of mind of knowing that the insurance provider provided the law firm to defend you and send letters back and forth and you had to go down and do a deposition and all of that was paid for by the insurance carrier for your policy. So it's very important again to have the adequate coverages, the proper carrier, and not just look at the price.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, as we close up, what is one piece of advice that you would give every and maybe not just one piece, any advice that you might have that you would give an NP or PA listening to this podcast when it comes to protecting their license, their finances and their future, maybe this is a good opportunity for you to just kind of put a segue in there about how important a key person policy would be as well.
Speaker 2:Sure, whether you're an established practice or starting new, the first thing you want to do, after you've established the state documents and the name and your federal ID number and all that fun stuff, get the insurance policies in place and, if your state requires it, getting the collaborating physician in place and a couple of the things that we've talked about. You know, when we talk about key person policy one of the things I used to talk to my clients about every business, including medical clinics, has that key employee, whether it be one, two, three, however many. They have key employees and one of the things I would always recommend is, if you want to retain that key employee, take a key person life insurance policy out on them for, say, 300,000, $300,000. So that if something were to happen to that key employee let's say they were to die you can name the clinic as a beneficiary for, say, $200,000 to help take that money to hire a new provider or a new nurse or a new employee, and then give another $100,000 to that employees the deceased employees's family member or spouse and that just ties them to the clinic.
Speaker 2:Another thing I always used to ask clients if you have partners within your clinic and let's say you have a practice of two or three owners.
Speaker 2:If one of those owners dies, their ownership to the practice transfers to their spouse. Do you want to do business with their spouse? If not, you can do a buy-sell agreement and you'll need to sit down with an attorney and draft this. But you create a buy-sell agreement that lines up exactly what happens in the event one of the providers passes away, and then you fund that with a life insurance policy. You fund that with a life insurance policy and, again at the passing of one of the providers, the benefit is paid out to the spouse of that provider and then you take over the ownership of the clinic from that person. So I just hope all this has been good information and I just wish you all the best. I know insurance is one of those things that drives every owner crazy. It's not a fun thing to deal with, but it is something that we all have to have to protect us and to protect our assets.
Speaker 1:Okay, mark Wall, I really appreciate you talking to everybody about insurance. Yes, it's scary. Yes, it's stressful. Yes, it's scary. Yes it's stressful. We know it's a necessity, but we didn't go to school to learn how to deal with insurance and how to interpret these things. So I appreciate when we have an opportunity to have someone attempt to explain it to us, and thank you for doing that, and hopefully you guys will see some benefit out of this podcast today and take into consideration everything that Mark said and look at your policies, make sure that you actually have the right coverage, and if something struck a chord in you that he said today about your policy, then talk to your insurance agent or your insurance broker about it and make sure that it gets resolved.
Speaker 1:If you're thinking about adding services to your DPC clinic, make sure that the first person you tell is your insurance broker. Other than that, I think that is going to be a wrap, mark. Thank you so much. I have thoroughly enjoyed this podcast. This is a different kind of podcast, but I think it's very informative, and my goal for this podcast is to be helpful to DPC owners, and so I think this is definitely one of those podcasts that is going to be so helpful to others. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, and I wish you all very well.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, y'all take care. Bye, bye. Thank you so much for joining us today on the DPCNP. We hope you found our conversation insightful and informational. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider subscribing to our podcast so that you do not miss an update, and don't forget to leave us a review. Your feedback means the world to us and it helps others discover our show. We love hearing from our listeners. Feel free to connect on our social media, share your thoughts, your suggestions and even topic ideas for future episodes. As we wrap up today, we are so grateful that you chose to spend a part of your life with us. Until next time, take care. This is Amanda Price signing off. See you on the next episode, thank you.