2012

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 ...

It’s no secret that we value our insureds here at PRMS.   Designing and creating premium services that help our doctors sleep better at night is a top priority.  Through our website, we are pleased to be able to offer you on-demand access to countless resources, including updated policy information, risk management newsletters and articles, online courses for CME, news about na ...

Our underwriters and risk managers are often asked, “Do you cover telepsychiatry?”  As with all of life’s important questions, the only correct immediate answer is, “It depends.” Of course, no one should accept this as a final answer, so we proceed to ask several other questions before rendering our final decision.  First, let’s look at the basic definition of the term. When we ...

We’re offering a Risk Management Seminar in Las Vegas, NV, The Impact of Professional Liability Litigation on Physicians and Opportunities to Reduce Risk, on Friday, July 20, 2012. We believe the issue of litigation stress is an important one.  In this seminar, we help you with this issue.  Here’s the link to our website with details http://www.psychprogram.com/seminars/. You’l ...

I returned to the office yesterday from the 2012 Annual Meeting. While this meeting was unique in that we weren’t on the exhibit floor, we still had the opportunity to meet with many of our customers. I had the following thoughts, observations, and reactions (in no particular order). Thanks to everyone who made their way to our hospitality suite in the Ritz Carlton Hotel. We ha ...

Many of PRMS’ staff travel to meet our customers at exhibits, seminars, receptions and educational events.   Our customers get used to seeing their faces, and they become, collectively, the “face” of PRMS.  There are also PRMS faces you don’t see, but they are just as important to our operations. We would not be successful without them. Spring is one of our busiest times of the ...