With malpractice claims and fraud bombarding the chiropractic field, malpractice insurer ChiroFutures Risk Purchasing Group is attempting to ease the burden on chiropractors by adding health plan billing error defense coverage to its Chiropractor's Malpractice Insurance Program.
“We are pleased to provide our clients with this enhanced coverage at no additional charge," Dr. Matthews McCoy, co-founder of ChiroFutures, said in a statement. "We know the special risks chiropractors face in their professional endeavors and we are able to offer insightful risk management advice and tools, as well as insurance products that meet a chiropractor’s specific needs.”
The health billing error defense coverage will be added to an already extensive list of protection and defense coverage offered by the ChiroFutures program, which is underwritten by Admiral Professional Programs. Coverage includes regulatory board defense, Medicare/Medicaid billing error defense, deposition assistance, information privacy wrongful acts and peer review committee defense.
While many malpractice and fraud claims turn out to false, there are unfortunately many others that are not.
A man from Windermere, Florida and his partner were recently arrested and charged with operating a health care clinic without a license and using money obtained from insurance companies in association with the clinic to pay their employees of auto business. They also used the money for personal profits.
Nonetheless numerous accidents, such as billing errors, occur not at the fault of doctor, which is what this new coverage aims to tackle.
Just this week, WakeMed Physician Practices in North Carolina agreed to an 8 million settlement for wrongly billing Medicare for overnight care when patients were treated and discharged on the same day. The problem emerged because nurses ignored physician orders to classify patients as inpatients rather than outpatients, thus causing the hospital to submit more expensive bills to Medicare.
ChiroFutures' expanded coverage will hopefully allow chiropractors the ability to focus on his or her work, rather than constantly worrying about what could go wrong within his or her practice.
Edited by
Rich Steeves
