Author: Chris Baxter

Congratulations! After years and years of work and study, you are now a physician assistant. Although this accomplishment already puts your life on a great trajectory, you should still strive to do the very best in your field. To that end, this article will explore seven ways to advance your career as a physician assistant.

1. Network

Many physician assistants know they want to advance their careers but are not certain where or how they want to move up. They might be dissatisfied with where they work but have no other places to consider. Their primary goal is just to keep options open.

If you are in this place, interested in career advancement but without any clear goal, the best way to get ahead would be to network. By networking within your field, you meet a wide variety of people. Some may present career opportunities. But even if they do not instantly give you a job, networking will still allow you to hear stories about overcoming career obstacles. Other people’s success will motivate you to make decisions about your future.

2. Conduct and Share Research

Whereas PAs in the past were not seen as sources for research, recent trends in the industry are changing that perception. PAs across the world are discovering how to develop their careers with thought leadership. PAs can now stand out among the crowd by conducting their own studies and sharing their reports at medical conferences.

This is one of the more creative ways to advance your career as a physician assistant. PAs who dip their toes into research are pioneers in their field. They are changing the common misconception of PAs as second-tier doctors and showing their abilities to contribute to the ongoing, important discussions within the medical community.

3. Get Certified

Physician assistants can receive certifications from a variety of agencies, such as the American Association of Medical Assistants. For some positions, additional training is a requirement. It is now rarely enough just to have the basic credentials. To become a well-respected, capable PA in the field, you must have additional qualifications, often gathered through certifications.

Some PAs begin studying for certifications immediately after they complete their training. It may be wise to collect certifications and build your professional resume shortly after you begin work. If you let too much time pass, you become complacent and lose sight of your goals for career advancement. To be a successful PA, you must always look for opportunities to build your credibility.

4. Supervise a Team of PAs

Management skills are sought after and appreciated in all fields, medical or otherwise. PAs who can step up as team leaders shine brightly in the eyes of their managers and supervisors. If you want to move forward in your career, look for leadership opportunities among your peers. If you have the organizational skills to keep everyone’s schedule in order, you have greater value than you might realize.

After all, it can be extremely difficult to remember who is unavailable to work because of a holiday, a sickness, or a family member’s illness. Juggling all these balls requires extreme focus and organization skills.

5. Stick To a Position

Although some PAs may feel the pull to constantly seek out the next best career opportunity, they can often add more value to themselves by sticking to one medical office for several years. Working for one employer will allow you to gain helpful experience, which will prove useful when you do decide to go out and look for the next opportunity.

Furthermore, employers appreciate people who can prove their loyalty. If your resume shows someone who jumps around from job to job, position to position, it may look like you would be a dangerous person to bring on. After all, what is the point in training you if you leave the work as soon as the training is complete?

If you want to go the distance as a PA, have patience. Do not be in a rush to leave every job, but instead focus on what you can learn from each opportunity. You may find that your current position has more to teach you than you even realized.

6. Delve Into a Specialization

Once you have more experience, you should consider a specialization for you career. A specialization can make you a more attractive job candidate because it shows you are invested in learning more about your trade and work. Employers love people who seek out chances to increase their value and capabilities.

The process of gaining a specialization, which may include certifications and training programs, will bulk up your resume. Imagine how future employers will review your work if you can show an aptitude for a vital area of medicine. If it is the same area as the one practiced by the employer, then you have an excellent shot of getting the job. If the employer does not practice your specialization, it at least shows how much you care about improving your work as a PA.

7. Attend Training Programs

If there is one point you should take away from this article, it is that more experience and training will yield a more successful career as a PA. One of the simplest ways to continue your education is to attend training programs. Going to these events will make you more proactive in your career. Even if you do not have a clear direction, it’s helpful to check out what’s new in the world of medicine and PAs.

Conclusion

With its high earning potential, fulfilling work, and excitement, the PA career path is one of the most sought after in the medical field. Every year, people work immensely hard to get the chance to be a PA. However, once they have attained that position, they can still go so much further.

If you are a PA looking to advance your career, hopefully this article gave you some ideas for how you could make a real impact. Maybe you are looking for new responsibilities, or maybe you just want to network with your peers. However you choose to advance, just make sure you remember how valuable you are.

And make sure you fully understand why physician assistants need malpractice insurance. If you’re interested in a quote for PA malpractice insurance, contact Baxter & Associates today at 800-641-8865.

This review of the four elements of malpractice and what they mean will be extremely helpful for patients who want to know if they experienced negligence while under the care of medical professionals. All people should know the opportunities afforded to them by civil law. If you or a loved one have lost money as a result of a doctor’s mistakes, you can take legal action.

Duty

The first element to understand of the four elements of malpractice and what they mean is duty. For a medical malpractice case to be underway, the plaintiff must establish that the physician owed a duty of care to the patient. They must show they had a doctor-patient relationship, one where the plaintiff could expect the same level of treatment as any person being served by a physician with their doctor’s education and background.

Dereliction

The second element of medical malpractice is dereliction, or “break of duty.” For this element, the plaintiff must show that the physician did not live up to their professional duty. They could prove this with evidence that:

• The doctor left surgical equipment inside the body
• The doctor incorrectly diagnosed the patient
• The doctor failed to recognize symptoms or signs of a condition

Direct Cause

For the third element, the plaintiff must demonstrate that there was a plausible connection between the medical negligence and the injuries sustained by the patient. It is not enough just to show that the physician failed to live up to their duty; you must also show how that mistake had a measurable impact on the patient’s life.

Damages

Every personal injury case, including medical malpractice, must show that the patient sustained damages because of the injury. They may have accrued these damages through the cost of the surgery, the lost pay, the diminished quality of life, loss of consortium, and other ways.

Summation

Hopefully, this overview of the elements of medical malpractice will assist you should you ever need to sue a medical professional for their negligence. If you need a malpractice insurance plan for nurse practitioners, be sure to check out Baxter & Associates.

When you’re opening a medical office, like a chiropractic practice, there are many ways to reduce risk, including through vicarious liability coverage. The business world is governed by all sorts of liability policies. Some types, like vicarious liability, are less commonly known than others. But businesses still need their insurance policies to cover it. Read this article to learn what vicarious liability coverage is and who needs it.

What Is Vicarious Liability Coverage?

But what is vicarious liability insurance coverage? Employees of a corporation may act inappropriately throughout the course of conducting business. In a company, you may see discrimination, sexual harassment, or other toxic behaviors. Any misdeeds an employee commits through their business could create a scenario in which the company is liable for its actions.

In the legal field, this is known as vicarious liability. It exists so the law can protect victims. Because of vicarious liability, people can sue if they are discriminated against or harassed. Businesses, however, can protect themselves from claims of vicarious liability by getting insurance policies that include vicarious liability coverage.

Respondent Superior

However, a company may not just be liable for the actions of its employees. They can also be held liable for what they did not do. If an employee neglects a duty, and that omission creates harm for other people, the company may still be held liable. Using legal terms, a business in that situation is under the respondent superior doctrine. This means that a business or a high-level figure in the business is liable for the actions of an employee so long as those actions happened when the employee was doing their duties. This includes the duties they fail to complete.

Who Needs Vicarious Liability Coverage?

Creating a compliance plan for a chiropractic practice or other medical clinic can help prevent unethical practice, but sometimes you need a safety net. People looking to know what vicarious liability coverage is and who needs it must first understand that any business with employees or volunteers is capable of having vicarious liability. Therefore, any business with employees could benefit from vicarious liability coverage.

People interested in learning more about insurance agent errors and omissions insurance policies should visit Baxter & Associates. You can also explore our blogs to learn more about vicarious liability coverage and supplemental insurance for CRNAs and other medical professions.

A big question on all medical staff’s minds during the COVID-19 pandemic is the issue of malpractice. Practicing medicine on a normal day will throw curveballs your way. But the unexpected only grows amid pandemic response, especially one as chaotic and large-scale as COVID-19.

In the midst of doctors and nurses doing their best to care for patients battling this life-threatening respiratory disease, a few mistakes are bound to happen, or at least some frustrating miscommunications. Medical malpractice still exists, even in the middle of a pandemic. Explore everything you need to know about COVID-19 and malpractice.

The Chaos of Pandemic Healthcare

The nature of pandemics is to grow in scale at exponential rates, threatening the flexibility and scalability of current medical infrastructure. Unfortunately, COVID-19 proved too pervasive for many hospital systems across the United States.

Ebbing and Flowing

Case spikes and COVID-19 lulls ebb and flow with various seasonal, medicinal, and social behaviors. When people spend more time outside or traveling internationally, the disease spreads quickly. This movement even sprouted the Delta variant mutation. Oppositely, the spread of the COVID-19 vaccine reduced the burden of sickness on the health system.

All this to say, healthcare quality and capacity in the past year reflects the oncoming or abating pandemic. When COVID-19 cases rose, hospitals became strapped for resources; when COVID-19 cases descended, medical staff had a much-needed breather. Though the disease did not and has not faded in tenacity, the initial chaos has mostly ended. Sure, new developments will come, but the foundational understanding of the virus and proven healing tactics are in place for a swift response.

Changing Expectations and Protocols

The chaotic atmosphere surrounding the healthcare community led to varied diagnoses and treatments for COVID-19. For a while, many didn’t know the full range of symptoms—even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a result, the diagnostic expectations and treatment protocols changed with the evolving symptomology.

As you might expect, people become angry when they receive subpar or different treatment from their peers. Disparities in COVID-19 treatment stemming from the slow development of information could lead to legal headaches down the road. Imagine receiving one medicine in the first months of the pandemic that researchers ruled inadequate to treat COVID-19 symptoms. All patients following that medical proclamation benefit from it, but not you. In this scenario, patients may feel entitled to some form of compensation for their troubles.

Potential Malpractice Threats in Hindsight

Malpractice cases don’t usually show up on your desk the day after an incident. It takes time for patients to gather their thoughts, find a lawyer, and decide to press charges. So by the time a prior COVID-19 patient serves you with a legal battle, the issue is trailing along in your rearview mirror.

Resource Limitations and Tough Decisions

It was not uncommon to read headlines declaring that hospitals are turning away patients. Outside the context of a pandemic, this selection and discrimination would be unacceptable and unethical—a direct violation of the Hippocratic oath.

However, the resource limitations forced hospital staff to make tough decisions with their limited resources. If there were no beds or PPE left, treatment was no longer an option. This denial of care could lead to worsened symptoms, lifelong impairment, or even death for individuals turned away by the hospital.

Lending a Helping Hand

During the case spikes, medical staff offered a helping hand to struggling hospitals and practices nearby. In the darkest hour, medical staff built bridges and lines of support to service their local community. However, when a medical professional acts outside the parameters of their practice or broader specialty, this could be cause for legal repercussions. This nobly offered aid is altruistic and well-intentioned but could cause problems legally if a medical professional acted outside their scope of practice.

Telehealth Limitations and Rapid Release

Telehealth and its widespread accessibility are now a blessing when patients and physicians understand its purpose and limitations. However, the initial rapid release of digital medical care may present some issues for providers down the line. When smaller practices and specialists moved their appointments to digital spaces, medical care’s personal and physical touch immediately vanished.

Telehealth is great for those too sick to go to a hospital or too wary of COVID-19 to enter dens of sickness. However, it entered the market so quickly that many legal teams lacked sufficient time to research potential issues or safeguard medical staff before launching online health appointments. While telehealth is much more established now, the truth is many practices across the US lacked the know-how to pull it off successfully.

Protecting Your Career From COVID-19

COVID-19 and medical malpractice center around your medical career and judgments about your ability to offer high-quality medical care. Protect your assets and practice with these quick tips.

Insure Your Future

Though many states have promised to protect medical professionals who lent a helping hand or denied care based on a lack of resources, it’s never too late to begin anticipating legal loopholes. Safeguard your career with malpractice insurance for healthcare professionals; that way, COVID-19-related incidents will filter through your policy.

Documentation Is the Best Policy

At the end of the day, COVID-19 is a developing situation, and the best way forward is with documentation and well-intentioned patient care. When you meet the standard of care as best you can with the information and parameters in your possession, you have little worry about your career. However, no one can anticipate the scope of legal problems related to medical practices post-pandemic; the more information you record about patient visits, the better.

The world turned to you for care and support in their direst hour of need. Don’t let legal nuances bite you back. Learn everything you need to know about COVID-19 and malpractice so that you can equip yourself for a long, successful career. Should you have any more questions about malpractice and insurance, our team at Baxter & Associates is more than happy to help. Reach out to us today to learn more about how you can find a policy to protect your COVID-19 response.

Starting your medical career is never easy, especially as a professional dentist. Discover these four mistakes new dentists make that you should avoid.

 

No matter what realm of medicine you work in, the key to above-board work is active engagement and error mitigation. While you cannot help that all people are prone to make a mistake at some point, you can do everything in your power to keep your track record pristine. Remember these four mistakes new dentists make that you should avoid.

Ignoring Thorough Documentation

Documentation is a huge part of operating a practice. Whether you are responsible for your own charts or a dental assistant is, the way you record and report patient interactions can be the difference between a successful business and a ruined career. Impress the importance of thorough documentation upon your staff as well. A few recorded sentences are all the evidence you need during a legal battle.

Forgoing Legal Protection

Should it come down to it, it is best to have medical malpractice insurance for dentists before a claim lands on your desk. While documentation helps with legal technicalities, an insurance policy is the only surefire way to protect your career. Avoid catastrophic consequences with a policy from Baxter & Associates.

Forgetting Patient Follow Up

It’s no secret that the majority of people don’t particularly enjoy visiting the dentists throughout the year. In fact, many might feel inclined to avoid your office altogether. While you cannot force someone into your exam chair, you can reach out to patients and follow up with them regarding future appointments.

If you want to establish a consistent, repeat client base and prove you care about people’s oral health, then don’t let past patients fall through the cracks. Though you may be busy tending to patients, you should task your front desk staff with these calls to ensure a personal and thoughtful patient connection.

Using Antagonistic Bedside Manner

You may not be an RN tending to a hospital patient for months on end, but your brief hour-long interaction with dental patients still falls under the bedside manner category. You can never anticipate how rude or kind, vulnerable or standoffish, chill or offended a patient will be when you first meet them. Your primary directive is to treat their oral health. However, you should also tend to your tone and conversational skills.

Avoid using antagonistic, pessimistic, overly firm, or uncaring words when interacting with your patients. People are sensitive about their oral hygiene, and most patients are loathing to answer your inquiries about flossing habits.

Keep these four mistakes new dentists make that you should avoid in mind as you flit from patient to patient. Should you have more questions about best practices in dental practices or want to safeguard your career with dental malpractice insurance, reach out to our team at Baxter & Associates today.

Medical professionals each follow a slightly different career track, but many aspire to operate their own practice. If you have a dream of owning your own dental practice, then you should start your planning right away. No amount of dental schooling or technical experience will replace focused business planning.

However, you don’t get into dental school because of your display of business acumen. Despite your well-established ambition, your skills are heavily weighted toward the technical side of the industry, not the business side. If you need somewhere to begin, check out these top tips for starting your own dental practice.

Build a Business Plan

The first step in developing any business venture is building a business plan. Whether you feel prepared for it or not, the truth is that a medical practice is a business at its core. You must have an airtight analysis for every business and accounting task.

Start With the Mission

Though your dental practice will most likely work as a for-profit business and not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, you can still have an overarching mission statement. This unifying vision for the company will guide your daily practice and how you build in the future. By writing down your broadest hopes for the business, you can delineate your expectations for the practice’s growth and team interactions.

When you write your mission statement, you should consider what drives your dental aspirations. What ideals do you ascribe to? Who do you aim to help with your services? What is the primary goal of your practice in the long term? Ask yourself these questions and draft a few phrases that are meaningful to you. Once you pare down the semantics, you can concoct a concise and eloquent mission statement for your dental practice.

Construct a Budget

Dental practices operate with the same influx of payments and invoices as all businesses, just with different procedures and line items. As an aspiring practice owner, you should build a budget—yes, build. Constructing a budget can feel quite tedious, and it resembles the process of an actual building project.

First, you must set a structure for your spreadsheet—what categories do you need to create, and what will go in them? Then, you must build on that foundational framework with market research that addresses equipment costs, local wage averages, and more. With every line item filled, you can then total the costs and present your totals to lenders and investors.

Address Logistical Needs

After planning your business ideas and jotting them down, you should move on to logistics. Your logistical needs will be many, but they are the most important to address before opening your practice doors.

Recruit Top-Notch Staff

As a dentist with years of training and experience, you know the extent of your abilities and the quality of your work. However, dental practices don’t rely solely on you as the dentist. There is a whole array of people that you need to keep your doors open.

Billing and Accounting

First, you need someone to manage your finances. When you have a constant stream of patients paying invoices, insurance companies to coordinate with, and staff salaries to pay, you need a qualified person to handle it all. Whether you decide to split your finance department into several roles or roll it all into one, you must have an experienced, organized professional at your side.

Front Desk Schedulers

Every patient that walks through the door needs a friendly, smiling face. The way you welcome newcomers will set the tone for the entire patient experience. Your front desk schedulers are critical to the success of your customer experience, which directly relates to online reviews and returning customers. You should look for a personable, calendar-loving individual who can manage multiple schedules, take dozens of phone calls, and handle several streams of communication simultaneously.

Cleaning and Sanitizing

Your medical facility needs to be clean and tidy. Without the support of cleaning and sanitizing staff, you won’t meet safety standards for many dental procedures. Whether you have dedicated cleaning staff or blend these tasks into other roles, you can’t overlook the priority of health and safety.

Human Resources

Human resources staff are a vital part of your operation. If you don’t provide a safe, nonjudgmental, confidential space to report workplace problems or handle personal issues, then your practice dynamics will suffer. If you don’t have the capacity to hire an on-site human resources person, you should look for outsourced HR management.

Legal Support

Since you work with people’s bodies, there is always the chance that something can go wrong. While you can’t help a patient’s choice to let their teeth rot, you can manage expectations and handle medical problems if they arise. But accusations of malpractice may land on your desk, nonetheless. A lawyer on staff or retainer will give you the immediate support you need if a claim occurs.

Update Professional Documents

When you obtain your license to practice dentistry from the state, you have very clear parameters for what you can and can’t do. If you want a license to practice orthodontics or oral surgery, you need a license for that specialization. That way, the state acts as a gatekeeper for the population, shielding them from ill-intentioned doctors. You must be crystal clear when describing the scope of your practice to the state and updating your professional licensure for the practice.

Another logistical need you must address is your insurance situation. As a private individual, you should have medical malpractice insurance for dentists that covers your personal interests. Then, depending on the tax structure of your organization and where liability rests, you may need further insurance on the practice itself. This way, you have a doubly verified failsafe should legal nastiness come your way.

Remember these tips for starting your own dental practice as you prepare your business plan. While each step will happen in its own time, you should operate with this general scope in mind. If you need help figuring out the insurance aspect of your new business, reach out to us at Baxter & Associates today. Our experts can help you find affordable, well-rounded policies for your new dental practice.

No matter what specialty you perform in the medical field, you interact with patients or their treatment to some degree. Certified registered nurse anesthetists are one such medical professional whose work involves significant patient engagement.

While you have the necessary degrees and experience, there is always the possibility that something could go wrong, and your patient will need to bring the problem to the legal sphere. In that case, it is best to have additional support by your side to protect your career if the situation goes sideways. Here is the importance of having CRNA malpractice insurance.

The Riskiness of Anesthesiology

Certified registered nurse anesthetists deal in drug-based sedation. While medicine is highly scientific, anesthesiology does require a certain level of creativity and experiential nuance. As such, the exactitude of a CRNA’s performance is less prescriptive and more subjective.

Because each patient requires a tailor-made solution, there is always the possibility of slight miscalculation or outright misadministration. In the event of anesthesiologic oversight, the patient may experience adverse side effects that prompt them to file a legal claim against you. It’s best to have CRNA malpractice insurance to cover your bases if a patient levels brings legally backed accusations against your medical performance.

Protect Your Interests

As a CRNA, you likely work in a practice or facility setting among other medical professionals. If you happen to work in a hospital, chances are you have a general malpractice insurance policy covering you and your colleagues from work-related lawsuits. However, these policies don’t have your best interests at heart—they serve to protect the medical institution, not your career.

That’s why you must take your career protection into your own hands. Don’t entrust an employer and their insurance policy with your financial and vocational future. CRNA malpractice insurance that addresses your specific scope of practice will serve you better in the long run than an employer’s policy.

Keep Doing What You Love

Medical professionals spend countless hours studying, working, and perfecting their craft to offer the best services to people in need. While professional interest and zeal may ebb and flow, your heart for medicine remains true. Keep doing what you love by protecting your career from disgruntled patients. All it takes is one determined former patient demanding an astronomical settlement to derail your professional legitimacy and devastate your financial stability.

Knowing the importance of having CRNA malpractice insurance can help you safeguard your career for decades to come. If you have any questions about medical malpractice insurance for CRNAs, our team at Baxter & Associates can answer all your queries. Reach out to us today and let us help you help others with peace of mind.

Managing your emotional health on top of your daily duties as a certified registered nurse anesthetist feels nearly impossible. It’s far simpler to prioritize the job and neglect your mental wellbeing. However, this is a road to misery paved by worry. Instead of living on the emotional edge, try out these tips for managing stress as a nurse anesthetist.

Name It and Sit With It

The first step in stress management is acknowledging that you’re stressed. Without an accurate perspective, you will always have trouble identifying your problem and taking effective action against it. Name your stress and sit with it for a minute. This could look like reflective journaling or introspective conversations with a therapist.

Get To the Root

The hardest part of noticing stress is finding its root. Sure, your job is stressful, but what about your job is stressful? Here are a few common stressors nurse anesthetists face that you could subconsciously struggle with:

• Overloaded with tasks
• Always racing the clock
• Inadequate professional social support structure
• Exposure to diseases, workplace injuries, and agitated patients

Connect With Others Outside Work

It is so easy to let workplace relationships consume your life, especially when working in a demanding atmosphere with long hours. CRNAs, just like everyone else, need to have friendships outside of work. Connect with other people in your neighborhood and community. Join interest groups and find ways to play sports with others. The more people you let in, the easier it becomes to manage your stress.

Safeguard Your Career

Nurse anesthetists work under intense pressure to perfectly perform every day, with dire consequences should something go wrong. Many CRNAs live with the nagging anxiety that a career-ending lawsuit is just one miscalculation away. CRNA malpractice insurance like ours at Baxter & Associates can help you find rest from your worries. Safeguard your career with a safety net.

Remember these tips for managing stress as a nurse anesthetist as you go about your daily duties. Though the medical field is demanding, try to recall the positive things you encounter each day. Patients are not the only ones who can have stories of triumph—conquer your day with a renewed mind.

Working as a physician assistant requires years of schooling and dedication. You are constantly working to further your professional career, possibly culminating in your own practice. But every medical professional needs to protect themselves. Here are the best tips for choosing physician assistant liability insurance.

Figure Out Your Location

When you finish medical training and look for your first job, you will need insurance to be a practicing PA. Find insurance for the location and state you plan to practice in, especially if you want to travel outside your current state. You may not know where you’ll be practicing until you have a job offer, so start researching insurance options ahead of time in the places you apply.

If you are an established PA and need new liability insurance for a new job or a relocation, you should also plan for where you are heading. The more you know about the local insurance options, the smoother your career transition will be.

Narrow Your Search by Specialty

Physician assistants may share a title and foundational education, but there are dozens of specialties within the medical field. These specializations will alter the levels of risk involved with your work and change the kind of insurance you need. For example, a dermatology PA who works with skin issues will perform vastly different tasks than a general surgery PA.

Connect With Local Medical Networks

Organizations, associations, clubs, and more—every locality has its own medical networks, even if they are quite small. Connect with the people who live and work in your area to understand the insurance landscape better. There may be discounts or coverage differences that only an insider will know, so put yourself out there and meet people who can give you the inside scoop.

Use these tips for choosing physician assistant liability insurance as you navigate your career. If you need a high-quality physician assistant medical malpractice insurance policy, contact our team at Baxter & Associates.