PRMS Blog

Alas, it’s election season. Every other TV commercial is stridently predicting the End of Life as We Know It (EOLAWKI) if Candidate X is elected instead of Candidate Y. Radio broadcasts are similarly plagued with outraged reminders that Candidate Z once brazenly spoke out of turn in kindergarten, according to a former classmate who remembers the day like it was yesterday and wh ...

No one is more pleasantly surprised than I am to see that a number of you have become regular readers of this blog. Up to this point, we at PRMS have chosen the topic of each post, based largely on what we think you may be interested in reading about.  We would, however, like to hear from you. What do you want us to write about?   Please send us your questions.  You can email m ...

Suicide is the precipitating factor in a large percentage of claims and suits filed against psychiatrists, regardless of where they work or where they purchase insurance.   When you provide several thousand psychiatrists with professional liability insurance, the aftermath of suicide becomes part of your professional life.  Most Americans, however, do not have familiarity with ...

A guest blog by Holly Taylor, RN, BSN, JD, Risk Manager Have you heard the term e-iatrogenesis? It was first used in a 2007 article to describe patient harm caused at least in part by the application of health information technology (HIT).[1] HIT includes such things as computer physician order entry, clinical decision support systems, electronic health records (EHRs), etc. Evi ...

A guest blog by Remy Palumbo, Senior Underwriter Many of us have a tendency to purchase insurance and then set aside our policy hoping to never need it.  Of course sometimes “life happens” and as a result, there are times when you’ll want to provide the underwriter of your medical professional liability insurance carrier with updates.  A few of these include: 1) When your maili ...

I’m sure many of you took note of the Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Anyone working in healthcare has a stake in how the US healthcare system will change as the law is implemented over the next several years. Medical professional liability insurance companies have been studying the law and its implications f ...

PRMS is located in Arlington VA, directly across the Potomac River from Washington DC.  On the evening of Friday, June 29, 2012, the “derecho” that formed in the Chicago area that morning hit the Washington metropolitan area with 80 mph winds and heavy rain.  For those of you lucky enough to have not been in an area hit by it, a derecho is a “string of storms that combined inte ...

At PRMS, we have long appreciated the fact that psychiatry, more than any other specialty, interacts regularly with government entities, particularly the courts. Every day, psychiatrists are called on to evaluate patients’ claims for disability, assess criminal defendants’ competency to stand  trial or their state of mind at the time of a criminal offense, provide input at a ju ...

Insurance and risk management consultation are service businesses. In any service business, the credentials of the people providing the service are essential. We work in a competitive environment; there are many companies that sell medical professional liability insurance. We believe our staff sets us apart from our competitors. For example, ten staffers are licensed as insuran ...

It’s one week after Memorial Day, and summer is upon us. Soon, most students will be on vacation, your patients’ schedules may be disrupted because of their own vacation plans or their need to take care of their children, your staff will be asking for time off, and even you will want to find a few days to escape. Here are a few things to think about: 1.  Let’s start with your o ...