Looking back at my “First things First” post of a few months back, I realize that I failed to motivate myself to follow my own strategic advice and go through these things in a strategic order. Writing about them here while in the process would have been helpful to processes the decision making process and help me move on to the next logical step. So let’s do a little review…

Malpractice insurance was an easy step that took me way too long to get under my belt. Just about every outside agency that you might work with requires a $1M/$3M policy, even though you could sign up for other less expensive policies. I’ve even heard about it being wise to get the $1M/$4M policy if your caseload is large enough to warrant two potential settlements in one year. However, my practice is currently small enough that I stuck with the former, which insurance companies and many contractors require.

I opted out from doing a thorough review of liability insurance providers after hearing enough positive things about about the APA’s Trust provider program to just move forward with it.

I chose the “claims made” option rather than the other option that covers all incidents that take take place during the time of the policy, regardless of when the claims are made. I decided to base this decision on my sound clinical skills and ethical principles and mostly for financial reasons. It costs about $1k less annual to go this route and right now I need that level of savings. My thought is that as my practice expands, I’ll go the other route which seems safer as I expose myself to more risk.