Professional Indemnity Insurance for SEM’s and Rheumatologists
45% of the SEM Register and 32% of the FSEM Council are SEMPRIS members
Sports medicine presents an increasingly complex environment with unique challenges and indemnity risks for Doctors; risks which hinge around the threat of negligence claims from party’s other than the patient / player / athlete, commonly referred to as third party claims; risks which are of a sufficient threat to have been encapsulated in the recently updated FSEM Professional Code 1.7 and which highlights the importance for third party cover, irrespective of the sport involved.
FSEM Professional Code 2016 1.7. Ensure that you have adequate indemnity protection against damages, claimants’ costs and defence costs relating to a claim brought by a patient’s employer, club, agent, sponsor or event organiser in relation to alleged negligent treatment of a patient. Members and Fellows should discuss indemnity options with their employer and medical defence organisation. Indemnity insurance may only cover the Doctor for claims made by the patient, and not by their club, agent, sponsor or other.
Increasingly referred to as operating in the ‘grey zone’ SEM doctors must assume that if it is grey to you as practitioners it will certainly be grey to those indemnifiers (MDU, MPS, MDDUS) whose membership and constitution is based upon providing discretionary indemnity only. In contrast SEMPRIS provides guaranteed, insurance based specialist indemnity.
Your indemnity is your very last line of defence in a claim. You need a guarantee it will respond – not might respond, to your “request” for assistance in the event of a claim.
What our clients say:
“For many years I was a customer of the MDU, but when they withdrew their third-party cover, then in football you are at risk. It stems from any situation where you are likely to be sued, blamed by anybody other than the athlete or patient you are treating.”
Dr Michael Stone, Chief Medical Officer, Birmingham City FC and BASEM Chair.
“We invest an awful lot of time and energy in getting the best possible care and treatment for the athletes we work with within that we also have to look after ourselves. By being a part of an organisation that I can call upon if there is a potential issue, knowing that I can pick up the phone to SEMPRIS and get the advice is great. If there is an issue where you can potentially have your reputation tarnished incorrectly, then you need to know that somebody is going to back you.”
Dr Nigel Jones, Consultant in SEM and Senior Team Doctor for the Rugby Football Union
Take a look at our article on Personal Risk Litigation, published in the latest issue BASEM Today:
