Blog Post
Three Reports for Managing MPL Claims and Supporting Your Insureds
A staggering 31.2% of physicians are sued for medical liability claims over the course of their careers, according to a recent analysis from the American Medical Association (AMA). With such a high propensity for litigation, it's critical to be able to mine the mountains of policy and claims data at your disposal for any business intelligence that can help manage and mitigate this risk. But how?
Modern core insurance platforms offer a variety of reporting functionalities to help unearth wisdom in what would otherwise be a parched desert of data wasteland. Here are three ideas that can help better manage your medical professional liability (MPL) risk.
Time Is Money
Report Description: Analyze the average length of time to close MPL claims by type of claim and various litigation factors.
Benefit: You have an abundance of experience (and data) that you can leverage to better anticipate MPL costs and plan for them. Beyond just the cumulative expense, there are trends and indicators to be found in the more granular details. Track the data over time to estimate cost trajectory and necessary reserves. As the frequency and severity of specific types of litigation heat up, such as what’s been seen related to opioids, platform dashboards are powerful tools to manage your exposure in real-time. You can also feed this data into your rating algorithms for more accurate policy administration.
Keeping Up with the Germs
Report Description: Illness-specific report, tracking occurrences by geographic region.
Benefit: Disease outbreaks are characterized by a large number of individuals who are simultaneously afflicted — which means a large population with potential for MPL claims. When disease rates spike, it's helpful to know how widely it has spread and how many insureds you have in that region to estimate your potential risk exposure. This was felt most acutely in the recent COVID-19 pandemic but can apply to a range of other ailments as well. Being able to visually note where influxes occur also provides an opportunity for proactive outreach to affected communities with helpful mitigation tips.
That Sounds Familiar
Report Description: Identify the most expensive MPL claims in your book of business, then run a report of claims with shared factors that may similarly explode.
Benefit: When the medical community identifies commonalities in specific types of medical malpractice suits, such as consistent factors present in claims, medical history, and/or socioeconomic background, they can develop reporting to find similar examples. These reports compare policy information to confirmed risk factors, allowing you to better manage relevant policy applications and claims.
The Right Tools for the Job
The key to building and leveraging reports such as these is having the right technology. Robust reporting functionality will allow a user to easily configure reports using any of the data points in their system, without requiring a heavy lift from IT.