Professional Liability Insurance (or E&O Insurance), protects your small business from claims of mistakes, negligence or malpractice made when providing your services that caused somebody financial loss. PLI covers your legal defense costs, damages and settlements.
Commercial Property Insurance will provide coverage for your properties in case damage renders them impossible to rent or lease.
Business Owners Policy (BOP) protects you from business liability and property damage at a lower cost. BOP covers claims resulting from fire, theft & disasters. BOP also covers claims of bodily injury or property damage during your business operations.
General Liability Insurance protects your small business against claims of third-party bodily injury and property damage, reputational harm and advertising injury. It covers medical bills, repair costs & legal fees.
Disability Insurance offers your small business financial support if you or any of your employees are unable to work as a result of a work-related illness or accident. Disability insurance offers financial support to replace a portion of lost income while they're recovering.
Workers Compensation covers your employees' medical costs and lost wages while recovering from a work-related injury or illness. The employee gives up the right to sue your company in return for receiving cash and benefits from Workers Compensation. In some states it’s mandatory for businesses!
What risks do Dental Hygienists and Dentists face?
As a Dentist or Dental Hygienist, you must take precautions to make sure you are protected from potential challenges and workplace mishaps. Even though you have undergone years of training, mistakes can — and likely will — still happen.
There are many potential reasons why a Dentist or Dental Hygienist may face liability charges. Some of the most common reasons are failure to refer a patient to a specialist, complications stemming from use of anesthesia, falls, burns, cuts, or slips at the dental office, treating or extracting the wrong tooth, or failure to fit a crown or bridge properly. Oral surgeons will face increased risks of claims filed against them as they often perform more complicated procedures and commonly use anesthesia.
Depending on the extent of the injuries or problems experienced by those filing the lawsuit against you, the awards can be considerable. Finding the right type of insurance is extremely important.
How do Dental Hygienists and Dentists connect with Insurance?
As a professional in the dental industry, there are many considerations you can choose to take in order to protect yourself. When beginning your career as a Dentist or Dental Hygienist you will need to identify insurance policies so you can find the one that best suits your specific needs.
Dentists face a litany of potential risks in their field. Whether it’s malpractice or a slip-and-fall incident, practicing dentists run the risk of involvement in a litigation process at some point during their career. As you may know, litigation is expensive regardless of whether or not you end up winning the case. Similarly, in recent years Dental Hygienists have been increasingly named as co-defendants in Dental Malpractice suits. As such, whether you are a Dentist or Dental Hygienist, it is important to ensure that you have the appropriate protections from potential lawsuits.
Working as a dental professional will mean dealing every day with public safety and wellbeing. Because of this, it is important to ensure you and your career are kept safe by the appropriate insurance coverage options. Insurance providers understand the need for dental professionals to be protected in this industry and offer a variety of insurance options.
What is dental malpractice?
Dental malpractice is a medical malpractice that causes injury to the customer from failure to diagnose or treat the customer, delayed diagnosis or treatment, negligence to conduct dental care or any misconduct of the dentist.
What happens if a malpractice suit is filed against you?
A malpractice suit is usually failure to treat the patient or their claim of injury from treatment. You have a chance to defend their claim. Screening panels will review the evidence of your case. If it is valid, a medical expert witness is called into court to testify. If the customer wins, your professional reputation is tarnished to the point of pursuing a different career. Without Dental Malpractice insurance, you could suffer loss of everything to pay the defense and any settlements. Most dentists even lose their home from a medical malpractice lawsuit alone.