Jul 24, 2024
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In April 2024, Berxi sat down with Nurse Practitioner and Creator
Katie Duke to discuss Medical Malpractice insurance. Katie had asked her Instagram audience to submit their questions ahead of time, so Berxi could answer them in person.
Below, we list the biggest takeaways from the Live Q&A as well as a transcript of the conversation. We’ve also responded to the questions we didn’t get to during the Live recording.
Katie and two Berxi experts covered a lot of material and some myths about medical malpractice insurance, and why nursing professionals (and all healthcare workers, really!) should have their own policy. We also debunked some big malpractice myths out there! Here are 7 quick and simple takeaways from our chat.
The number one concern for Katie’s nursing audience is that they’re more likely to get sued if they have their own policy. Berxi assured all viewers that this is a myth. There are no policyholder lists out there. No one knows if you have a policy unless you tell them. Even your employer won’t know. And Berxi takes your security very seriously.
A licensing board review is when you are being questioned by your state board due to an accusation of violating medical standards, the state ethics code, or state or federal law. If they find you guilty, your license is on the line.
Most hospital malpractice policies do not provide legal representation for board reviews. But if you have an individual policy, you’d have legal access to prepare you for the meeting and mediate on your behalf.
Shocked to learn that most hospital policies don’t cover licensing board reviews, Katie said this is a main reason nurses should buy their own individual medical malpractice policies. Berxi’s policy will provide up to $25,000 in coverage per year and has contacts with attorneys who are very familiar with nurse licensing boards in each state.
Katie and Berxi spent significant time clarifying the meaning of “primary” policy. If you work for a company as a W-2 employee, you are likely covered under their medical malpractice insurance. This is your primary policy. If you decide to buy a separate policy, it would be your “secondary policy.” A secondary malpractice insurance policy is often:
If you are an independent contractor or small business owner, your primary policy may be the only medical malpractice policy you purchase. In that case, you should make sure your policy provides enough limits of liability to give you peace of mind that you would be covered in a worst-case scenario.
Jessica, our complex claims director, told Katie a story of a nurse who was undergoing cancer treatment, and while hospitalized, she was hit with a licensing board review request. The nurse is a Berxi customer and needed assistance in her defense – but first, she needed the review panel to extend deadlines so she could focus on her recovery.
In cases like this, customers greatly benefit from Berxi’s seasoned attorneys who work in the medical malpractice field. They often know the ins and outs of the industry, and in the case of a board review, they have often worked with the board before.
Berxi, which is part of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, has a wealth of incredibly smart and capable lawyers at its fingertips. And because the cost of your defense is paid outside your limits of liability, it does not deduct from your limits. You have your full limit to pay any settlements. Having highly capable and experienced attorneys at your side, and covered under your policy, is an added benefit.
Katie tells the story: “They were all very similar board complaints, but [for] the nurse who had her own policy versus the nurses who did not, it was a completely different experience. They felt like they were just left in the dark. They didn’t know where to start because they didn’t know anybody who’d ever been through this, and they had a really difficult time finding attorneys who were actually aware of nursing regulations, state regulations, and all the laws that apply, but also understanding what nurses do.
“The other nurse, who had a claims team at her disposal, all she had to do was make a phone call. The ability to know instantly [that] I have an expert I can contact who can help me through this, and this is what they do for a living, that is worth its weight in gold. That, honestly, was one of the things that really prompted me to get my own policy coverage.”
In 2023, Katie was asked by her followers what medical malpractice insurance she had — and she said Berxi! Since then, Berxi and Katie have been in talks to start collaborating on an influencer campaign. You can see Katie’s Berxi page here.
Katie said she was prompted to buy her own policy after witnessing friends go through licensing board reviews. One had malpractice insurance and was able to get legal assistance quickly. The other two nurses struggled over what to do next.
When asked how easy the buying process was, Katie said: “As somebody who has Berxi, I’ll tell you how I did it. I went to Berxi.com and I filled out the information because you can get a free quote.
“And if you’re kind of confused about what changes you need to make or if you need to get extra coverage or if you need to take down your coverage, it’s really easy to get connected to somebody and chat with them. And this stuff is really important.”
It’s important to remember that protecting yourself can be as low as $7.25 a month. One benefit of buying medical malpractice insurance from Berxi is that we provide a direct-to-customer experience. This means we cut out brokers and agencies, often saving customers up to 20% on their policy. But we also pride ourselves on Berxi’s customer care and claims process.
Get a quote and see how quickly it can happen
Or, call and talk to someone to check the quality of service for yourself!
Katie’s audience sent her the following questions ahead of our conversation. But we were only able to answer a few on the air. Here are the answers to all the questions that Katie’s followers asked.
The TL;DR answer here is NO. NO. NO! This is a total medical malpractice myth. There are no lists of policyholders and no way for your hospital, patients, or patients’ families to find out if you have an insurance policy. There’s no way for other insurance companies to learn if you have insurance. This information is confidential.
We suggest that you go to Berxi.com and get a quote. You’ll first want to know if you are buying a primary policy (it would be your only policy) or a secondary policy (if you’re already covered by your employer’s policy). You will be asked a few questions and then receive a free quote. There’s no commitment to buying that day. If you decide to buy it, you can buy and download your policy that day.
A few decisions you might have to make:
Once you select and purchase a policy, your policy will be emailed to you, and you can download it from your account page at Berxi.com.
What should you expect a policy to cost? RNs getting a secondary policy can typically expect to pay about $87 for the year. A primary policy would be about $300. NP policies can be as low as $800 per year.
Our policy does require you to use our attorneys and this is why:
In case you are concerned that the attorneys provided by an insurance company would be too expensive, it’s important to know that your defense costs are not part of your limits. This means if you have a $100,000 limit per claim, and your defense is $20,000, you still have the full $100,000 to spend on the claim. This would be used for any settlements or fines you need to pay.
Getting named in a claim or having a licensing board review can be one of the most stressful times in a nurse’s life. Having an experienced team of medical malpractice attorneys at your fingertips is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your career.
While most hospitals and medical facilities provide malpractice insurance for their W-2 employees, contractors (1099 employees) are not usually covered.
It’s also important to note that hospital-provided policies often don’t cover your legal support for licensing board reviews. This is one of the reasons employees buy secondary policies (for as low as $87 a year). Plus, a secondary policy provides extra limits of liability and contact with a claims representative in case they need it.
As Katie noted: “When you have your own policy, not only is it providing you a little more coverage in terms of professional liabilities and other things, but you have a claims team that is at your disposal if you are named in a suit. You have a team that can work for you, you have your own set of attorneys. And this is a big deal because [hospitals] can only go to bat for so many people. If there is a difference in opinion of what happened in between one provider and another provider, who do you think the hospital is going to choose? They’re going to choose to protect what’s in their best interest.”
Well, if you’re asking an insurance company, we’d say that considering we live in a very litigious world, nurses in any setting can only benefit from having their only policy. Here’s why:
First, you’ll want to look at the policy your hospital provides and search for the following:
At the end of the day, having your own policy gives you peace of mind. If the worst-case scenario happens, you would have additional financial resources and legal support to lean on. And for most RNs, this costs about $87 a year. For NPs, policies start at $800.
You can buy a Berxi policy three months in advance of when you need it. You just select the start date that you want when getting a quote. Your policy is then emailed to you and saved on your account page.
Clearly, you are addressing some common questions and fears, so we want to make sure we tackle all of the concerns you are mentioning here.
An individual policy provides confidence and peace of mind for a worst-case scenario. This includes:
One of the main reasons Berxi customers file claims is for Licensing Board Reviews. Keep in mind that this is your license at stake, your career, and livelihood. You’ll want “free” legal support to prepare you, fight, and negotiate on your behalf. This is something an employer policy often doesn’t provide.
No, you are not more of a target. We see claims come in with entire medical teams listed on them. Lawyers are naming every team member who saw the patient. But it’s not because they know who has extra insurance. There is no way to find out who has individual malpractice insurance – unless you tell them.
Whether or not you have an insurance policy, this could happen. If a patient feels they have suffered from negligence or malpractice, they can sue the practitioner or team they feel caused the harm. It’s not the hospital that gets sued. It’s the practitioners. That’s you.
Given today’s litigious climate, you’re better protected if you have ample insurance with additional coverage like Berxi provides.
Katie Duke added: “So many of us have been told really since our infancy while we were in school that if you have your own policy, you’re going to get sued. And I never really understood the basis for why people would tell us that other than to just scare us. But the fact remains that unless you tell somebody you have a policy, they have no way of knowing. You can’t just look it up online the same way you can look up our license information or if we’re listed in a provider database for an insurance company; it’s not the same.”
When looking at any Berxi competitors or medical malpractice policies as a whole, we’d suggest you review:
One major thing to note is that at Berxi you are buying directly from the insurance company, which usually saves up to 20% on the price. You don’t have to be an association member and there are no added fees from buying through an agency or program administrator like NSO.
Berxi has seen everything from the tens of thousands to the millions. The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), which shares claim payout data since 1990, notes that medical malpractice claim payouts – specifically for nursing professionals—has increased significantly over the years. In fact, 2023 saw 27 settlements for more than $2 million, compared to 2013 when there were 15 settlements for more than $2 million. However, over the past 20 years, the majority of claim payouts have been under $50,000.
Berxi’s goal is to get you out of the claim completely or settle it quickly without having to add it to your permanent record. We want to keep you away from a long, stressful litigation. But if it happens, we’ll fight hard for you with the best malpractice attorneys we know.
Sam, underwriter at Berxi, suggested to get your own coverage. It’s peace of mind if things go wrong. Jessica, complex claims director at Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, added that peace of mind is what a Berxi policy affords. We will provide up to $25,000 to support a board complaint. This is something most employers won’t help you with at all. Katie reiterated Jess’s point adding “It’s insane that hospitals won’t cover you for a board complaint, given how common it is. If more people knew that, it would be even more of a no-brainer for people to get their own individual policies.”
Below is the official transcript from Berxi’s live chat with Katie Duke. We have highlighted some key quotes that really stood out. Enjoy!
Katie Duke:
Hi friends, how is everybody?
I hope everyone’s having a lovely Tuesday. Hey, boos. So tonight we are going to talk about the incredibly fun and entertaining topic of medical malpractice insurance policies. Whether you’re a nurse or a nurse practitioner or a physical therapist, etc, you need your own medical malpractice insurance policy.
And the thing is that there’s a lot of misinformation out there and there are a lot of people who have the wrong information about the whole approach to medical malpractice insurance policies. So I’m going to be joined tonight by two experts from Berxi. Berxi is a part of Berkshire Hathaway and they are who I get my medical malpractice insurance policy from. I’ve had them for years. I’m really happy with their service.
So tonight we’re going to be joined by two of their experts. It’s going to be Samantha and Jessica. And Samantha is an underwriter with Berxi, and Jessica is a complex claims director. So if you have questions about medical malpractice insurance policy coverage, it doesn’t matter what field or what specialty you work in, any questions you have, drop them below and we will try to get them answered.
And we’re also going to go over some questions that people sent in ahead of time.
So let’s get this started. I’m going send the invite. Who’s ready and excited to talk about medical malpractice insurance policies.
Do you have your own policy? That’s actually my first question. Hi guys.
Okay, awesome. Oh, so I see @TravelingSagittarian does not have your own policy. So what I did was I just started out asking people if they have their own individual medical malpractice insurance policy just to break the ice. And so far, most people have all said no, which is great because then we can give them some information tonight about medical malpractice insurance policies.
So if you guys can just do a quick little introduction. I already told them your names and what each of you do for Berxi, but if you just want to reinforce who is who and we can get started.
Samantha Blaser:
Sure. I am Samantha Blaser. I’ve been with Berxi about two years now as an underwriter. Before that I was a claims adjuster in auto. So I’ve been in the insurance industry about five years now.
Katie Duke:
What is an underwriter? That’s actually what most of us do not know.
Samantha Blaser:
Sure. So let’s summarize my job in one sentence or less. We’re about risk management. That’s what an underwriter does. So mostly what I do at Berxi is I look at our incoming patients and we help decide who we want to write, what risks we want to take on.
Katie Duke:
Okay. All right, great. And Jessica?
Jess McCarthy:
Hi, I am Jessica McCarthy. I am a complex claims director here with Berkshire Hathaway and I handle Berxi claims. I handle casualty claims, so what you see in the trucking or product space, and also some of our human and social services type organizations as well.
Katie Duke:
Okay, great. So we are going to get started. I’ve been collecting questions over the last few weeks and having people submit questions about the different types of information that they want to know about medical malpractice insurance policies. So let’s go ahead and get started with the first question and answer and then we can chat about that and go from there. The question was, does having your own medical malpractice insurance policy make you a target because people look at you as you have deeper pockets.
So this is actually the most common question that I get about medical malpractice insurance policies and what people want to know is, are you going to get sued because you have your own policy?
This is the question that everybody has because there’s a lot of misinformation out there that especially a lot of us nurses, we’re often told that we will get sued more or we will have a higher likelihood of getting sued or named in a lawsuit if people find out we have our own individual medical malpractice insurance policy. So if you can go ahead and give us the actual truth here so we can dispel the misinformation.
Samantha Blaser:
Sure. So I will confirm that is a myth.
Katie Duke:
Confirmed.
Samantha Blaser:
So I’ll say that in my experience, and I’m sure Jess’s as well, there’s no list out there, right? There’s no list anywhere saying who has any sort of errors and omissions, any sort of medical malpractice.
Katie Duke:
Yeah, it’s not public information.
Samantha Blaser:
No.
Katie Duke:
Exactly.
Samantha Blaser:
And even if someone went around calling medical malpractice companies, we’re not disclosing your information. So there really is no way, as far as I know, for anyone to find this information out.
Katie Duke:
Unless they disclose it themselves.
Samantha Blaser:
You disclose it yourselves, but your employer’s not going to know. Your patients aren’t going to know. You have to be the one to say, “I have this insurance.”
Katie Duke:
Yeah. So I think a lot of times nurses, nurse practitioners, our industry, there’s a lot of punitive culture in our industry. And there’s also a lot of scare tactics when we’re in nursing school and when we work for big healthcare organizations. And so many of us have been told really since our infancy while we were in school that if you have your own policy, you’re going to get sued.
And I never really understood the basis for why people would tell us that other than to just scare us. But the fact remains is that unless you tell somebody you have a policy, they have no way of knowing. You can’t just look it up online the same way you can look up our license information or if we’re listed in a provider database for an insurance company, it’s not the same. That stuff is public information.
But whether or not you have your own medical malpractice insurance policy, the only way people can find out is if you tell them because you just heard it from actual employees of Berxi that if somebody calls up and says, “Hey, does Katie Duke have individual medical malpractice insurance policy with you guys?” You can’t disclose that information to them. Correct?
Samantha Blaser:
No, we would never. Personal information stays personal. We are going to take your security very seriously, it’s not something we would ever disclose under any circumstances.
Katie Duke:
Yeah, that’s good to know and very refreshing because there’s a lot of people that don’t have their own policy strictly for this reason right here. In fact, just today I’ve answered 10 questions of people reaching out to me saying, “Well listen, I always heard that we shouldn’t get our own policy because we’re going to get sued.” And really, it’s really unfortunate that that is in so many people’s heads and that’s directing them to avoid getting their own policy. So crazy.
Jess McCarthy:
Absolutely. I think you absolutely want the most coverage possible. I mean, we are seeing crazy nuclear verdicts right now. And so the more peace of mind you have with more coverage, to me, is the best possible outcome you can have as a nurse.
Katie Duke:
Yeah, not only coverage, because when you have your own individual medical malpractice insurance policy, not only is it providing you a little more coverage in terms of professional liabilities and other things, but you have a claims team that is at your disposal if you are named in a suit. You have a team that can work for you, you have your own set of attorneys.
And this is a big deal because one of the things I’ve highlighted in previous videos that I’ve done here is that we have, whenever we are solely covered by the hospital that we work at, they can only go to bat for so many people if there is a difference in opinion of what happened in between one provider and another provider.
And who do you think the hospital is going to choose? They’re going to choose to protect what’s in their best interest.
There’s so many people who just have the wrong information overall. So I’m glad that we’re getting that straightened out. All right, moving on to question number two.
Samantha Blaser:
How do I find a policy, is question number two.
Katie Duke:
Yeah, where do you start? How do you find a policy? As somebody who has Berxi I’ll tell you how I did it. I went to Berxi.com and I filled out the information because you can get a free quote. You can also speak with somebody about specifics, sometimes people who work in different areas may need different types of medical malpractice insurance.
For instance, if you only do telehealth or if you do aesthetics or if you’re doing invasive procedures or if you work as a solo provider versus if you work under a collaborating physician. If you work in an intensive care unit versus if you work in a GLP management program. So there’s a lot of things that can affect what type of policy coverage you need. And so if you guys can just kind of walk us through what somebody can expect when they are looking for a new policy on your site.
Samantha Blaser:
Sure. So once you go on our website, you can get a quote in under five minutes. Again, like you said, completely free, just a preliminary quote to see how much it’ll be. When you click on Get a Quote, you’re going to go through, we’re going to ask you not very many questions. We’re just going to ask you:
An RN policy for secondary coverage only should be about $87.
Katie Duke:
That means somebody who has a full-time job, correct?
Samantha Blaser:
Yes.
Katie Duke:
When you say secondary coverage, what you’re referring to is a nurse who is working for a W-2 employer?
Samantha Blaser:
Yes.
Katie Duke:
Yes. Okay. Just want to make sure that’s clarified.
Samantha Blaser:
For a registered nurse, what we mean by primary or secondary coverage. Primary means you have coverage through your employer. You’re a W-2 employee, and you already have that primary coverage and you want this secondary as backup. So that is less expensive if you’re getting secondary coverage. So that’s why we’re saying roughly $87 if its secondary coverage.
Katie Duke:
And then how about somebody for primary coverage?
Samantha Blaser:
If you’re getting primary as an RN, that starts more about $300 per year.
Katie Duke:
That means that you do not have another policy you’re covered under, correct?
Samantha Blaser:
So it’ll be your only policy, your primary.
Katie Duke:
Yes, your only policy. Okay.
So nurses who are employed, who have a W-2 job who are covered under their employer or their hospital’s medical malpractice insurance policy, can get a secondary policy through Berxi for about $87 a year.
And a nurse who is, maybe a nurse is self-employed, or maybe you work for an employer that does not provide their own policy coverage for you, you can get your own medical malpractice insurance policy for around $300, give or take. So that’s just about as far as what it looks like for a nurse.
Now granted, if you’re a nurse practitioner, these numbers are going to look different, but again, your policy is going to be catered to what your needs are. So with me as a nurse practitioner, I right now work in telehealth and I work with GLP patients, and I also will be providing aesthetics soon. So I’m going to actually have to go in and adjust my policy to cover me for the aesthetics realm because that’s not something that I have.
That’s actually one of the things I really like about Berxi is that it’s really easy to make changes to your policy. And if you’re kind of confused about what changes you need to make or if you need to get extra coverage or if you need to take down your coverage, it’s really easy to get connected to somebody and chat with them. And this stuff is really important.
If you’ve seen any of the videos that I’ve posted before, I’ve shared some nightmare stories. I hate to say the word nightmare stories, but there have been some people out there whose lives have been upended by situations where they realized when it was too late that they did not have medical malpractice insurance policy coverage and that stuff can really upend your life. So it’s really good to make sure that you are covered. And we all work very hard for our license and our state of professionalism is so paramount to all of our careers. And so I really just want to encourage people to look into this.
Let’s move on to the next question. And while they’re getting that ready, if you are interested in looking into coverage through Berxi, you can click the link in my bio or you can comment “Berxi” on any one of my reels and I’ll send you a link to learn more. So let’s get into question number three
Jess McCarthy:
Question number three is, do most malpractice policies require you to use their attorneys or can you use your own?
Katie Duke:
Good question.
Jess McCarthy: we have a panel of nationally vetted attorneys that are ready, boots on the ground, ready to defend your case if and when you do receive a complaint or some kind of board action.
The short answer. We actually require that you use our attorneys. I know this could be a little bit uncomfortable for some people; however, there are benefits to this. Let me explain.
So first off is These attorneys are highly experienced. They have been doing medical malpractice work for years, and they understand a lot of the nuances of a lot of these types of nurse practitioner type cases that we see. I can tell you that a lot of our insureds are incredibly stressed, they’re in a time where they’ve just received a complaint or board action. It’s an incredibly emotional experience for them.
Katie Duke:
A board action sounds like the worst thing to go through. Yeah, a lawsuit, obviously being named in a lawsuit is traumatizing, but going through a board complaint carries a whole different type of weight for us because boards of nursing have been infamous for not supporting nurses and nurse practitioners over the years.
And there are so many nurses and NPs all over the country who have had nightmare stories from their interactions with boards of nursing. So I think to have an attorney at your disposal on your team who has so much experience specifically with these types of situations, those are the attorneys who are going to be working with you from the Berxi claim. I mean, they would be like your claim attorney, right?
Jess McCarthy:
Correct. So you have an attorney who’s going to be in that state who is familiar with the board. Oftentimes they’ve been in front of the board so many times that they know the investigator, they know the board, and they can kind of have discussions where maybe you are getting a better deal than you would have if you weren’t represented by these nationally vetted attorneys.
Katie Duke:
They have connections and relationships.
Jess McCarthy:
Exactly. I have a story where I just got a new board complaint from one of our insureds out in California. And she’s undergoing a pretty traumatic experience where she’s being hospitalized right now. She’s getting chemo treatment, and the last thing she wants to do is vet an attorney.
And so she was like, “Do you have anyone?” I was like, “Well, actually I do. I can immediately sign a lead who’s going to call the investigator right now, get you an extension, talk to them, tell them this is the situation, she’s currently hospitalized, and she needs more time to be able to respond.” I mean, can you imagine going through a traumatic event like that?
Katie Duke:
No. I can’t imagine when you are completely healthy and able-bodied going through a board complaint. So I know several people who have gone through board complaints. I’ve been a nurse for 20 years, an NP for the last 10, and I know three people who’ve been through board complaints.
One of them was lucky enough that she did have her own individual malpractice insurance policy coverage. And that was one thing. The other two people did not. They were all very similar board complaints, but the nurse who had her own policy versus the nurses who did not, it was a completely different experience.
So the two nurses who did not have their own individual medical malpractice insurance policy coverage, they kind of felt like they were just left in the dark. They got a notification that there was a board investigation going on. Their employers at the time, they were actively suspended at the time.
They were so startled by this, they just didn’t know where to start because they didn’t know anybody who’d ever been through this. And if you go to Google nursing attorney or board complaint attorney, it’s kind of hard for Google to pull up things that are actually relevant. And they had a really difficult time finding attorneys who were actually aware of the board of nursing and nursing regulations, state regulations, all the laws and everything that apply to people, but also understanding what nurses do. That was the crazy thing.
There’s so many attorneys out there who understand what physicians do and what surgeons do and what healthcare management systems do, but there’s not a huge surplus of them who understand what nurses’ jobs are and what our relationships with hospitals are like and how healthcare systems treat us and just the kind of environments that we work in.
So the two nurses who had to really start from scratch because they didn’t have any referrals by word of mouth, they didn’t have coverage, so they didn’t have a person to call and say, “Hey, I know this is your specialty. I need help with this,” and have an expert ready on the phone. And they just didn’t know where to start.
So they were so late to really find people who could advocate for them and help them through this, that they were so pressed and rushed for time by the time these deadlines came on. And it was really so upsetting for them because they felt very alone. It was incredibly overwhelming.
They had no resources, they had no support, and they ended up hiring attorneys who were attorneys and nurses, but it was not their specialty to handle board complaints. They just happened to be a nurse attorney.
And so they just had a really difficult time, as compared to the other nurse who had a claims team at her disposal. And all she had to do was make a phone call. And even though, again, going through a board complaint is traumatic and devastating and really, really stressful to say the least. And I’m not speaking from firsthand experience, but from people I’ve known.
The ability to know instantly, I have an expert I can contact who can help me through this, and this is what they do for a living, that is worth its weight in gold. And just seeing these nurse colleagues of mine over the years go through this, that honestly was one of the things that really prompted me to get my own policy coverage. I never had it. I never had it for years when I was a brand-new nurse. Honestly, I never had it until I moved to New York and became a travel nurse, and it was travel nurses who had these board complaints who I was friends with over the years.
So yeah, I could go on and on and on, but not to digress too much, but what we were trying to highlight was that when you get named in a lawsuit as a nurse or a nurse practitioner, or if you have a board complaint that was filed against you and you were in the midst of a board complaint situation, the first thing that you need to do is make sure that you have an attorney representation.
If you have your own individual medical malpractice insurance policy, you have someone available immediately who is an expert. If you don’t, you’re really going to have to go through a word of mouth or a Google search. And that’s not always the easiest and most seamless way to go about things.
So this is really helpful information. I’m glad that we’re getting this accurate information out there.
So I guess I want to end this live with a couple things. I want to know if there’s any advice that you guys could give our audience who’s viewing this and who are going to re-watch this over the next couple weeks from you, the experts.
Do you have any advice for people outside of, “Get your own policy,” any good guidance or anything that you can offer nurses or a tidbit of information that you would love for people to take away from this live? Go ahead and get it out there.
Samantha Blaser:
Okay, so I’ll say that given the claims I’ve seen being in this industry, I would get my own policy, I guess is the takeaway for me. So I want that board action protection. I want HIPAA violation coverage. I want extra limits backing up. I want that peace of mind and security in case anything goes wrong. I know that I don’t need to be sitting and worrying about this. I want that. I want to know that it’s all taken care of. I have my own policy. I think that’s my takeaway.
Katie Duke:
Great. Those are good. It’s a pretty expected takeaway. Yep. We’re here talking about this. We want you guys to get your own policy for your own self-protection. That’s really the golden takeaway of the night.
Jess McCarthy:
Yeah, yeah. Peace of mind is a big one for us, and that’s what the Berxi policies afford. Obviously, Sam just highlighted some of the extra protections that the Berxi policies afford, especially if you’re a W-2 employee with a hospital. A hospital is not going to cover you if a board complaint is filed against you.
Katie Duke:
Can you say that? You said a hospital will not cover you. Say that again.
Jess McCarthy:
So if you’re a hospital W-2 employee, not every hospital, but most hospitals don’t cover board complaints if you have a board complaint made against you. And so we provide up to $25,000 in legal costs defenses for board complaints. I mean, that’s a lot of money.
Katie Duke:
I had no idea. I’m working with you guys and I had no idea about that. So what they just said was that if you are covered under your hospital’s insurance policy, your hospital or your employer’s malpractice insurance policy, most hospitals’ malpractice insurance policy coverages will not cover you for a board complaint.
And Berxi’s individual medical malpractice insurance policies can give you up to $25,000 of coverage through a board complaint. I think that that is insane that hospital medical malpractice insurance policies won’t cover you for a board complaint because I feel like the board complaint is the heart of so many suits that nurses are named in, and I can’t imagine that. And I think if more people knew that it would be even more of a no-brainer for people to get their own individual policies.
Thank you guys so much for coming on here. Thank you for staying and working late because we know that this is definitely after hours. So I really appreciate you guys staying and working late and also answering these questions. And I really just want to shout out you guys for being so informative and so supportive.
I want to encourage anybody out there if you do not have your own individual medical malpractice insurance policy, not saying you need to immediately buy one, but please look into it. All the information online is free. You can get a quote for free and you can find this information at the link in my bio, or you can comment “Berxi” on any of my reels, and I’ll send you a link in your DMs. But please look into it and look up some information and empower yourself to protect the license and protect yourself through these situations because it can happen to any of us.
These things don’t always happen as a result of a direct action that we have done because a lot of people out there saying, “Oh, I’d never do anything that would lead me to get a board complaint. I’d never do anything that would be considered malpractice.” And those are a lot of people’s famous last words.
So take the extra step, learn a little more about individual medical malpractice insurance policy coverage, and inform yourself because the information is power. So thank you guys so much for coming on here, Sam and Jessica, I appreciate your time. And if you didn’t catch this, it’ll be saved on my page and you can check it out later on. And I hope everyone has a good night. Thank you guys. Bye.
Image courtesy of istock.com/demaerre
Last updated on Jul 24, 2024.
Originally published on May 20, 2024.
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Alexis P. Theriault, Esq. Jul 24, 2024
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