Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice typically concerns the negligence of a healthcare professional. In order to prove, it usually requires evidence that the plaintiff suffered medical injuries due to a medical professional’s breach of conduct. Such examples include, prescribing wrong medicines, giving wrong medical advice, performing wrong surgery and reckless handling of a patient's body.

Hence, medical malpractice liability refers to when a person or multiple people should be held legally responsible for a patient’s injuries. Typically, it involves one party but it is not out of the ordinary to involve multiple parties. For example, a nurse may have followed a wrongful doctor instruction, both parties can be held liable. Nonetheless, in some cases, it may be challenging to determine who the liable parties are.

Medical malpractice insurance covers a wide range of expenses. The following are the basic coverage that are included in a Medical Malpractice policy:

• Attorney fees
• court costs
• Settlement costs
• Medical damages
• Arbitation costs
• Compensation
• Unintentional intellectual property infringement
• Reasonable and neccesary costs of replacing or restoring lost documents

Policies are usually "claims made". Claims made policies cover claims brought against the insured physician (or other professional) during the policy period. A less common policy is called "occurrences" policies. An occurrence policy covers claims arising from acts committed during the policy period no matter when the claim is filed. Claims made many years after the policy has expired may be covered as long as they result from acts committed while the policy was in effect.

It protects physicians and other healthcare professionals against claims alleging their negligent acts caused injury to patients. Medical malpractice insurance is essential for nurses, dentists, opticians, physical therapists, or anyone else who provides healthcare services.

In Thailand, this policy is only available to businesses. Thus, medical personnel may not be able to purchase for themselves, however, it is the duty of hospitals, clinics and dentistries to purchase a medical malpractice solution and provide coverage for the aforementioned medical personnels.

The costs can vary as it is predominantly determined by the types of medical profession the coverage is for. For example, a surgeon takes on higher risks than a flu doctor and therefore the price will depict accordingly.

A Medical Malpractice policy may be considered as niche. However, at CHAZ, we dedicate our understanding to every policy with considerate attention and care so our clients can rest their minds at ease.