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Talking to GPs about locum insurance you come across all sorts of reasons why they don’t have cover, ranging from the cost to the ‘fact’ that ‘insurance doesn’t pay out’ to ‘I’m uninsurable’ to ‘we cover for each other’.

‘Insurance doesn’t pay out’ is probably the most emotive so let’s cover that one today.

Claims data isn’t widely published in the locum insurance world but we have nothing to hide! We have declined only two claims: one person didn’t disclose a shoulder injury which occurred 3 weeks before taking out insurance and, some months later, claimed for surgery on her shoulder.  The other was someone who took out insurance knowing that he was undergoing emergency surgery the following day which, again, he failed to disclose.

So your practice partners are already working beyond capacity. One of them drops out, but attracting a new GP proves difficult. Could a practice-wide locum policy be the key to attracting the right person?

Finding the right GP for your practice has become harder than ever– just at a time when you’re more likely to need one. The GP Recruitment Office recently confirmed that GP applications in 2014 are down 15% from 2013 − stymieing the Government’s hope to attract the much needed 3,250 more GPs a year by 2015. Compounding the problem, a new study by the BMA has revealed that six out of ten GPs are considering early retirement due to ‘unsustainable workloads’ and the danger of ‘burnout’.

I’ve just heard about a dentist who won’t go on holiday because it ‘costs’ him around £3,000 a week in lost income.  He sends his family off for a few weeks and just carries on working.

Let’s save the ‘quality of life’ discussion for another day and look at the purely financial aspects of this person’s life.

The man’s overheads for his practice: staff, leasing costs, utilities, phone and internet, rent and so on, are substantial and he feels he can’t take his foot off the pedal because he needs the income to keep the practice going.

Clearly, this person is driven and the viability and success of his business is paramount.  But he’s not invulnerable. 

Our locum insurance is Health Insurance Magazine’s product of the week

"We like a lot of what is included in this new product.”

Andy Couchman – Health Insurance Magazine

Health Insurance Magazine has just chosen Practice Cover locum insurance as their product of the week. Here are the benefits they said made our product a good one and you can read their additional reviewer comments in the quotes below.

GP practices face financial melt-down

As last week’s ‘Pulse’ reveals ‘GP partners in some areas are in such financial difficulty that they have been unable to pay themselves for several months’.GPC deputy chair, Dr Richard Vautrey, is quoted as saying: ‘We are concerned by the increasing reports of practices and GPs in financial problems caused through no fault of their own. Our fear is that this is only going to get worse as NHS England pushes ahead with cuts to essential correction factor payments and slashes PMS funding …’.

Clearly, practices are looking at ways to save money: cutting staff, cutting clinics, stripping out non-essential expenditure.

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