Newsletters & Updates
Academic Group picked to provide professional liability insurance by faculty at Westchester Medical Center.
The Academic Group of insurance companies has been selected by the faculty of New York Medical College at Westchester Medical Center to provide professional liability insurance to the approximately 290 doctors and dentists teaching and practicing there, it was announced today.
The insurance policy will be provided by Academic Health Professionals Insurance Association, a Reciprocal Insurer, a New York admitted carrier which is owned by, and insures only, medical and dental school faculty. In addition to professional liability insurance, Academic will provide risk management education and other support services to the doctors and dentists who work and teach at Westchester Medical Center.
“As one of New York State’s premiere teaching hospitals, Westchester Medical Center presents an excellent risk profile for Academic,” said Martin L. Kern, executive director at the Academic Group. “We look forward to collaborating with the hospital's risk managers to help our new teaching physician policyholders meet the expected standard of care and to working with the center in maintaining its excellent reputation.”
Gary Brudnicki, chief operating officer at Westchester Medical, said, “With the Academic Group, we found a professional liability insurer who really understands the nature of practicing medicine in a teaching environment and the risk management needs of practicing medical professionals. We look forward to working with their team in providing coverage for our outstanding group of physician and dental faculty.”
“The medical faculty at Westchester Medical are passionate about the care of their patients and Academic is equally passionate about protecting their careers,” said Kern. “We are thrilled to have been chosen and to have the opportunity to represent such an outstanding group of medical professionals.”
Chairman's Notes
Every physician owned company should have service as its number one priority, and this is certainly true at Academic. We are always reviewing comments from our subscribers as part of our ongoing efforts to improve our operations, and always with a commitment to maintaining a strong and stable organization. I am especially proud of our claims service. Medical liability lawsuits present physicians and all caregivers with complex professional and emotional challenges. Although we cannot guarantee a successful defense in every case, we know it is our responsibility to make sure that our staff and resources stand with you and that an experienced litigator is there to defend your care and reputation. With his permission, I am pleased to share with you a note from one of our faculty subscribers complimenting his assigned defense counsel and the support he received from Academic.
Academic's mission of protecting and defending a teaching doctor's clinical care and judgment continues to attract the attention of our peers. Over the years, I have heard enthusiastic support for our insurance model from faculty at other schools. My colleagues serving on Academic's Board have as well. We have expanded our program and have enrolled a number of teaching physicians at the University of Louisville. The Academic insurance model has indeed kept our costs in line despite the fact that neither New York nor Kentucky is experiencing the reforms that have been passed in so many other states. Additional state specific pressures impact us, including the effects of New York's Medical Malpractice Insurance Pool.
At the strategic planning level, Academic's Executive Committee and Board has analyzed the Association's resources and prospects so as to continue to: (1) enhance security and services to all our present faculty member insurance policyholders and (2) expansion of our policyholder base to other qualified teaching physicians. To meet these ends, we have considered and we have formed a new insurance company, to be owned by policyholders and organized as a risk retention group ("RRG") under federal law. The new company will be an adjunct to Academic and will enable our underwriters to continue to competitively quote premiums in line with our preferred risk profile as teaching physicians. The new insurer will also allow our underwriters to create new policy protections and coverage features for faculty and practice plans. We will continue to keep our subscribers apprised of these developments.
Planning has not replaced good operations. Our Claims Committee remains active and engaged. Board members are assisting in reviewing claims and providing medical expertise in managing them. We are grateful for the work of this Committee, especially the Chair, Dr. John McCabe, as well as Drs. William Dillon and Michael Zenilman.
I encourage Academic's members to submit their suggestions as to how our organization can better serve themselves and their colleagues, and refer us to other schools that may be searching for insurance alternatives. If you have ideas, please contact Marty Kern, Esq. (marty@academicins.com) or Jay Roberts (jayroberts@academicins.com) or send your suggestions through Academic's web site's contact button found at academicins.com. We look forward to hearing from you, and thanks for your support.
Solutions President's Notes
Specialty insurers help stabilize insurance markets and hold down the cost of insuring risks. Regional and specialty carriers emphasize long term, trusting relationships with policyholders. Many have existed for more than 100 years, and obviously weathered terrible insurance markets and investment conditions. Overall their numbers have increased since 1986. The overwhelming majority are financially sound, even as companies hundreds of times their size falter.
We smaller specialty companies need to remind ourselves of this periodically. Since the creation of the malpractice insurance committee within SUNY in 1986, we have never lost sight of our mission and our goal. We have long term relationships with our subscribers (and ALL of Academic's Board members are subscribers) and we are continuously seeking to build policyholder security. Even with the added challenges of being a New York licensed medical malpractice carrier, we continue to serve our subscribers well, while carefully building financial strength.
One of the key reasons we are able to do this is our ability to communicate with subscribers. We solicit comments from every subscriber we defend. We have policyholder representatives serving on our Board from every campus. Importantly, we are in constant dialogue with our insurance mangers to make sure they are up to date regarding the needs of each campus and the clinical practice plans. In turn, this gives them the knowledge and information needed to solve problems and protect our subscribers.
We have developed (and are continuing to develop) an informative web site, and encourage our members to visit the site at www.academicins.com. Recent additions include a section containing Articles of Interest and relevant Appellate Court decisions. ELM, our risk management education consultant, continues to provide our web site with current, challenging cases with a question and answer section that our members can use to test themselves. We also post this Newsletter there, as well as new information as it becomes available. The web site also contains a "contact us" button subscribers may use to ask questions or share suggestions. Thanks to those of you who have taken advantage of this.
As a further commitment to keeping our operation responsive to the needs of our subscribers, we hold monthly meetings of several standing committees. As noted by our Chairman, the work of the Claims Committee has evolved into an excellent source of intelligence in managing our risks. As a member of that Committee, I appreciate the work of my colleagues.
Please feel free to speak with or e-mail the Governing Board representative at your respective campus about suggestions or ways you would like to become more involved with the program. Email addresses for Board members and Solutions staff are on Academic's web site.
Educational Seminars
Academic and Education in Legal Medicine, Inc. (ELM), our education consultants, continue to develop relevant materials for our On-Line Risk Management program.
As effective (and convenient) as our On-Line training is, Academic continues to present live seminars at our campuses as well. If you would appreciate an on-site risk management training program for your campus/department, please contact us via e-mail to request scheduling an on-campus program for your department or specialty.
Academic's Board has resolved that our On Line courses must be taken by our subscribers and successfully completed each year. For our New York subscribers, the education course must be successfully completed each year in order to qualify for the free excess medical malpractice insurance ($1 million above our primary $1.3 million in coverage). In conjunction with ELM, Academic offers an on-line Initial or Basic course (five hours) as well as three follow-up courses (three hours).
The next follow-up course (Phase 5) has been approved is available online. A subscriber must complete his or her next annual course (whether Basic or Phase 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5) by June 1, 2008. This is especially true for New York subscribers who must successfully complete the course in order to qualify for the free excess policy coverage for the July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009 excess policy year.
New policyholders or subscribers who have not taken any course must first take the Initial or Basic course immediately upon enrollment. For New York subscribers, this initial course will qualify you for the 2008-2009 free excess policy of insurance. Annually thereafter, participants take the next course in the series.
The same on line enrollment, system and format as before will apply, allowing use of the same password for continuity. Returning users, who cannot recall password information, please follow the online instruction or e-mail elmsupport@elmexchange.com.
You may contact Janet Williams at 646-808-0592 (janet@academicins.com) if you have any questions. Once again, the On-Line course can be accessed at http://ahpia.elmexchange.com/ccc or on our website www.academicins.com
Legal Hotline
Our Legal Hotline is an excellent source of information about issues that concern our subscribers. These comments help inform our Risk Management Training Program, which continues to evolve to become more relevant to our members.
This service, provided by the law firm, Feldman, Kieffer & Herman, LLP, is available 24/7 at phone number (800) 572 0179. As a reminder, actual reports of claims and lawsuits must still be directly reported by the policyholders directly to Academic.