Phoenix Agency specializes in providing Podiatric professional liability insurance, specialized Podiatric legal defense and claim administration combined with loss prevention activities that aim to protect your reputation, financial future, and your national practitioner databank record. Phoenix Agency is committed to protecting Podiatric practitioners from an ever-changing professional liability environment.

Steven Lademan, President of Phoenix Agency and of the Podiatric Risk Management Society, has provided the Podiatric community continuous Podiatric professional liability protection for 35 years. This protection was founded on the premise that Podiatric physicians present unique risk factors as a specific specialty group. This protection is comprehensive in that it provides not only quality insurance, but specialized claim administration processes and loss prevention services.

INSURANCE
Phoenix Agency is the managing general agent for MHA Insurance Company, which is rated A- (Excellent) by AM Best Company. Phoenix is in charge of all aspects of the insurance program including underwriting and claims administration on behalf of its Podiatric insureds.

Podiatric professional liability insurance coverage features include:

• Competitive Rates
• Free Prior Acts Coverage, which allows you to transfer from your current carrier to our program with no need to purchase “tail coverage” from your current carrier
• Free Corporate Coverage
• Free Tail Coverage Provisions (when qualified)
• Physician “consent to settle” Clause
• Newly Licensed Practitioner Discounts of 75% the first year, 50% the second year, 25% the third year, and 20% the fourth year
• Part time Coverage Discounts up to 50%
• Free Podiatric Assistant Coverage
• Specific policy endorsements that tailor your coverage to your needs

Phoenix is also able to assist its customers in handling most of their insurance needs.  Phoenix or its affiliates can provide general liability, office coverages, workers compensation insurance, and life and health insurance.  Phoenix is licensed in property and casualty, life and health, surplus lines, and is a licensed adjustor.  Please contact us with any of your insurance needs.

Phoenix, through its affiliations, can also assist you with retirement planning.   

CLAIMS ADMINISTRATION
While we work diligently with our insureds to prevent incidents from becoming claims through our loss prevention activities, where litigation cannot be avoided, we have developed a process to maintain control over both the fiscal and litigious phases of the claims process. We have successfully done this handling hundreds of Podiatric professional liability claims for over 30 years. Our process includes:

• Selecting defense counsel from our carefully chosen list of resources, all of whom have extensive experience in defending podiatric claims
• Assisting defense counsel in assessing the claim and planning a defense strategy utilizing an expert claim review prepared by one of our selected and specially trained members
• Investigating your claim as thoroughly as possible, including patient surveillance when appropriate
• Securing qualified expert witnesses, including both podiatric and non-podiatric experts, to testify on your behalf
• Assuring the active participation of podiatric physicians in mediation and facilitation processes

We make a concerted effort to reduce the frequency of claims by working closely with our insureds when they have any form of patient incident.

LOSS PREVENTION 

Reducing Your Risk Through Loss Prevention

Since the simplest, most effective way to handle a lawsuit is to prevent it from occurring in the first place, PRMS is committed to helping you avoid circumstances which could lead to a claim filed against you.

Through our comprehensive loss prevention programs, which include newsletters, seminars, and individual consultations, we increase your awareness of the many ways you can reduce your exposure.  We'll keep you informed and up-to-date on a variety of issues that affect your professional liability, such as medical recordkeeping, informed consent, facilitation and the changing legal environment surrounding the practice of Podiatric medicine.

Incident Administration

Sometimes, prevention is not enough, and when an incident is reported, PRMS supports you by taking immediate action.  Our staff works diligently with insured and non-insured PRMS members, known qualified experts and defense counsel to determine appropriate steps, including intervention with patient or patient's attorney to avoid litigation.  In many cases, the Society has been successful in avoiding litigation altogether by negotiating an early, advantageous settlement or eliminating the claim altogether by convincing the plaintiff that they have no legitimate claim.  In fact, because of our outstanding record, some major plaintiff firms now voluntarily cooperate with us in evaluating claims prior to filing litigation.

Thus is it important for Podiatrists insured through Phoenix to report all potential professional liability incidents.  Insureds can rest assured that incidents administered by Phoenix, even if we hire defense counsel to represent and assist you, are not reported to the insurance company as a claim and thus, until and unless, the incident results in litigation your professional liability record is not affected.

We have assisted insureds in situations including bad surgical results, abusive patients, patients exhibiting drug seeking behavior, patients requiring discharge by the practice, patients requiring referral to other Podiatrists or other specialists and incidents of many other descriptions.  To accomplish this, we have created procedure forms that we tailor to the facts and circumstances of your current patient problem.

At times, incidents require we hire a defense attorney to represent you.  For example, you may be called for a deposition in a workers compensation claim and the patient may also pose a high degree of professional liability risk.  In an incident like that we would retain and pay for defense counsel to prepare you for the deposition and represent you at the deposition to protect your interests.

Through our aggressive incident administration we have been successful in reducing the frequency or claims against our insureds.  This process has also resulted in a reduction of the cost (severity) or claims as the process, especially if we receive early notification from our insureds, gives us a critical advantage over plaintiffs and their attorneys.  In all respects our incident administration process protects our insureds risk management profile and helps our insureds maintain coverage at better rates.

Other Loss Prevention Activities

While incident administration is by far the most direct form of loss prevention service provided by the Society, the Society will also attempt to increase your Professional Liability Risk Awareness through:

• Newsletters
• Seminars
• Individual Consultations

Medical record keeping, defining legal parameters of the practice of Podiatric medicine, medical-legal news, facilitation and its benefits, informed consent, and management of potential problems and crisis situations are all primary loss prevention functions.  Additionally, the Society will present appropriate loss prevention programs at the lowest possible cost with an eye toward coordination, to assure that time and expense in loss prevention will provide the maximum benefits in terms of reduction in frequency and severity of claims.

You practice in a very litigious environment, and the Society is committed to assisting you avoid litigation through education and loss prevention programs.  This requires coordination by management of the loss prevention and claims administration functions.  Through claims activity, areas of increased exposure for the Podiatric Physician members will be identified and specific loss prevention programs will be implemented to deal with that exposure.  Additionally, it is conceivable that areas of increased cost but not necessarily exposure can be identified, and if so, must be properly addressed to reduce upward fiscal pressures on rates.

Phoenix will provide loss prevention materials in the risk management section of this website.  Here you can download PDF files on a variety of risk management issues.  Of particular importance, however, is the "Podiatric Medical Record Keeping Booklet" developed by Steve Lademan and the Podiatric Risk Management Society.  Without a doubt good Podiatric records, kept in accordance with this booklet, has done more to prevent claims from occurrence or reduced the cost of claims, more than any other loss prevention activity.  Please download and review the booklet if only for a refresher on good records.

Lastly, please review the section on Informed Consent!  You must get your own office informed consent form signed.  DO NOT rely solely on the consent(s) required and signed at the hospital.  They are NOT proof of informed consent and are almost always inadequate to defend you.  If you only do one thing after looking at this website, make it a review of our informed consent recommendations and begin doing and getting defendable informed consent.