Uninsured Physicians
If you are a physician and you did not buy the “tail” of your Claims Made Medical Malpractice Insurance Policy, you may face paying very large sums to defend yourself in malpractice litigation, not to mention the possibility of losing the case and being therefore liable for a huge amount of damages. You must know the law in this area.
Being named as a defendant in a medical malpractice lawsuit is never something that a doctor wants to have happen. However, usually you simply send the papers to your malpractice insurance company and the company assigns your defense to a law firm and the company pays the legal bills for your defense. But sometimes the physician is found to be without insurance.
This happens most often when the doctor, who has a “claims made” type of insurance policy, retires and decides not to buy the “tail” of the insurance coverage. This “tail” is the coverage that will be provided to the doctor for all litigation brought after the doctor retires. In some cases, however, the doctor feels that his/her workload was truly minimal for the last two or three years of practice and that there were really no situations which could possibly lead to a malpractice suit. Therefore, why pay perhaps $100,000 for a “tail” that will never be utilized? Unfortunately, what often occurs is that shortly after making the decision to not purchase the “tail”, the process server appears at the door with the lawsuit.
What to do? The first thing to do is send the papers to your former insurance carrier because there are instances when the carrier might have to provide you a defense even if you did not purchase the tail. The insurance company may even settle the case on your behalf. However, you might be legally liable to repay the insurance company. In that situation you require experienced legal advice to navigate those waters.
In other situations the insurance company will not have to defend the claim and if that is the case, you will be on your own. In those instances the first thing you must do is contact an experienced medical malpractice defense attorney to defend you. You will have to pay for this defense, but that is certainly preferable to disregarding the issue because that will only end up with a default judgment entered against you which in turn will greatly increase the legal cost to you to get out of that situation.
Please be sure the lawyer you do retain is experienced in medical malpractice defense. Do not employ the lawyer who handled your real estate transaction or the one who prepared your will. Medical malpractice is a true specialty and your interests will very much be best served by retaining someone who does this type of work on a daily basis.
You must meet with your lawyer at the very beginning and make him understand that you want this litigation to go away as soon as possible. Your lawyer will tell you that most likely the plaintiff’s lawyer’s interest in the case against you will drastically decrease when he learns that there is no insurance. If there are other viable defendants, the plaintiff’s lawyer will look to them for a settlement. Also, if you have to contribute to a settlement, your lawyer should be able to make the amount as painless as possible. For example, we have settled cases like this by having the settlement accomplished through stretching the payments out over a period of years, making the monetary impact much more manageable.
Peltz and Walker has been defending physicians in malpractice cases for over 30 years. We have the experience and expertise required in this type of litigation and therefore we are able to provide advice that may well assist you in the litigation.
Speak with an attorney specializing in defending uninsured physicians