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Insurance requirements in hospital contract
Our PP group is negotiating a new contract with one of our hospitals. Hospital system recently went through some re-organization and now, as opposed to dealing with local administration, we are dealing with with some faceless Wizard of Oz from behind the curtain.
Anyways, our new contract has a bunch of new language, including about our insurance requirements. Contract states that hospital must be listed as additional insured on our individual malpractice policies. We thought it was a funny request but maybe unbeknownst to us, a common practice. I talked to our malpractice carrier and they were also confused and said no to that request.
New contract also stipulates that we carry a very large amount of cyber security coverage even though our group cant really seem to identify group specific exposures that are not just the hospitals exposure. Our general liability carrier also said they wouldnt underwrite a policy of the requested amount.
Hospitals legal department said they wont remove or change the language. Anyone have similar contractual demands from their hospitals? -
10 Replies
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Tell them to go fark off. How big is your group? Are you small and somewhat easily replaceable? Nothing is easily replaced in this market of course.
If your group is at least 10 rads who will present a united front in negotiations, I would play hardball. Not sure how admin thinks they can just do whatever they want without consequences.
My guess though is that youll have enough rads in your geoup that get queasy at the thought of playing hardball and potentially losing the contract. But no pain, no gain. If you cant or wont fight it, you will just need to show your belly and let them ride roughshod over you
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Group is aligned and we have no problem playing hardball. We will not be easily replaced.
My question boils down to this – We would technically be in breach of the contract if we dont/cant meet their contract demands re: the insurance coverage. Dont care because.good luck find replacements. But would we be taking on a bunch of extra new risk by signing the contract when nothing about the work environment changed from last contract to new contract?
Disclaimer: not asking for air-tight legal opinion.
Quote from sartoriusBIG
Tell them to go fark off. How big is your group? Are you small and somewhat easily replaceable? Nothing is easily replaced in this market of course.
If your group is at least 10 rads who will present a united front in negotiations, I would play hardball. Not sure how admin thinks they can just do whatever they want without consequences.
My guess though is that youll have enough rads in your geoup that get queasy at the thought of playing hardball and potentially losing the contract. But no pain, no gain. If you cant or wont fight it, you will just need to show your belly and let them ride roughshod over you
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I think in this situation, the move is to just not sign the contract. Nothing would stop you from doing the work and you would be under no legal obligation to follow any of their demands. If you aren’t afraid of another group lobbying for the right to work there, what’s the contract for?
Exclusive contracts used to benefit PP groups more or at least equal to the hospital’s benefit. Now they are more important to the hospital.-
That makes sense. The main impetus for getting the contract signed is to collect the negotiated increase in hospital stipend.
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‘Additional insured’ has a very different meaning in different states based on insurance regulations and legal precedent. In some states you could do this and it does nothing to dilute out your coverage. The fact that your medmal carrier says njet suggests that there is a tangible benefit to it in your state.
In some settings it just means your insurer can’t add the ‘addtl insured’ as a cross defendant etc. This becomes important in fingerpointing situations where hospital employee effed up and radiologist gets sued.
The cyber coverage has to do with those ransomware attacks.-
Thanks for the additional background on the additional insured. Makes more sense. Unfortunately seems as though we may be stuck without a solution.
As far as cyber security and ransomware attacks – we are using only computer equipment provided by the medical system for on-site and off-site work. The hospital network that we are working on is supposed to be secured by their hardware/software. We arent internet searching, checking email on these computers, etc. I am not computer savvy but dont understand why or how it is our groups risk that needs protecting when we are working on their computers, PACS, etc. Our 3rd party billing office does interface with the hospitals system and does have cyber insurance (albeit not to the amount the hospital system is requesting).
Quote from fw
‘Additional insured’ has a very different meaning in different states based on insurance regulations and legal precedent. In some states you could do this and it does nothing to dilute out your coverage. The fact that your medmal carrier says njet suggests that there is a tangible benefit to it in your state.
In some settings it just means your insurer can’t add the ‘addtl insured’ as a cross defendant etc. This becomes important in fingerpointing situations where hospital employee effed up and radiologist gets sued.
The cyber coverage has to do with those ransomware attacks.-
Quote from goldenbell12
As far as cyber security and ransomware attacks – we are using only computer equipment provided by the medical system for on-site and off-site work. The hospital network that we are working on is supposed to be secured by their hardware/software. We arent internet searching, checking email on these computers, etc. I am not computer savvy but dont understand why or how it is our groups risk that needs protecting when we are working on their computers, PACS, etc. Our 3rd party billing office does interface with the hospitals system and does have cyber insurance (albeit not to the amount the hospital system is requesting).
Doesn’t make a lot of sense in that setting. I have noticed that our hospitals have gotten more restrictive on network access in that they only want to have workstations that they have 100% control over. This gets tricky with things like mammo workstations that just don’t run well if the hospital mandated antivirus keeps sniping individual processes.
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If you’re only using hospital-provided equipment, why would you take the brunt of the cyber security liability? that makes no sense.
If they want to give you cyber security modules to fulfill the requirements for their own coverage, that’s all well and good. But making you liable for something you have zero control over is a no-go.-
have your legal department at the hospital speak to the legal department of your malpractice carrier. Let them negotiate a deal amongst themselves.
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Quote from Wilhelm Roentgen-the original
have your legal department at the hospital speak to the legal department of your malpractice carrier. Let them negotiate a deal amongst themselves.
Cyber coverage is typically part of your general commercial liability insurance.
The issue seems to be the amount of coverage they are seeking. From a insurance perspective that’s actually not out of line as there have been cyber incidents with multi million damage amounts. It’s probably a corporate wide thing and they are seeking the same level of coverage from all the contractors that deal with their IT systems.
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