Risk Purchasing Group Q&A

A Risk Purchasing Group is an insurance purchasing entity formed with the purpose of unifying like risks to collectively bargain for insurance coverage, and to reduce the group participants’ risk profiles. The RPG can also create a significant source of revenue for the organizing society or Accountable Care Organization (ACO).

Yes, the formation of Risk Purchasing Groups is a legal right given by the federal government and widely used in many industries, including in the medical community.

In general, doctors have a hard time unifying and doctors and their leaders have not been fully informed about the existence of and benefits of RPGs.

Until you unify you will have little, if any, control over your malpractice insurance rates. The insurers count on you to not unify, just as managed-care companies do. There is “strength in numbers” for both the physicians and their chosen insurance carrier vs.going it alone.   You can maintain your individual coverage options and even your ability to negotiate for your group, but you will do so with added strength. There are no added restrictions to purchase with the group or restrictions about leaving the program, so there is no real risk, just great upside potential. There are more risks associated with “going it alone” than if you purchase as a group. If your practice suffers a paid loss then not only will your malpractice costs likely increase, but you will also have fewer options to negotiate for better coverage and rates long into the future. Some practices become stuck paying these higher costs for many years, or they will sometimes choose lesser coverage with a non-standard carrier. No additional liability is assumed because you are insured through the RPG. You have the same liability as you would if you insured directly with the insurer.

You can get into an RPG generally with little or no entry fees or investments and you can leave the RPG once you join and are there no charges or penalties to do so.

The RPG model is much more powerful than traditional society endorsed insurance programs since an RPG will be controlled by the RPG’s board, not by insurance companies as in the society endorsed programs. With many physicians purchasing together the RPG will be able to control your insurance destiny much more than society programs in which there is no organized doctor leadership for the insurance program, or transparency even in who is insured in the program.

No. One of the organizing principles of an RPG is to gain much more control over physicians’ malpractice insurance instead of giving control to the insurance companies like doctors have traditionally done in Florida.  When the med mal market heads towards troubled times for doctors the insurers can easily cancel or greatly reduce the discounts for society programs, whereas the RPG will be able to weather the next crisis because of the strength of hundreds purchasing together, as well as having a less-risky pool of doctors because of the risk management focus and leadership.

The long-term goal is to greatly reduce the risk profiles of the RPG’s members by focusing on cutting-edge risk management techniques. As members’ risk gets better and better theywill be more and more attractive to the insurance companies, which means lower rates.

No, you can keep exactly the same limits, deductibles, and any other specific options you have chosen with your current insurer in almost all cases. There will be no requirement that all of the RPG insureds have the same options.

All applicants will go through an underwriting process before being approved for participation in the program. Both the RPG and the insurer will have an underwriting process for program participants. However, we have taken measures to ensure that any physicians falling outside of the underwriting guidelines for participation will have the ability to obtain coverage either through the RPG insurer or other non-standard carriers with whom we have established relationships. Those discussions will occur on a case-by-case basis depending on the claims history of the individual doctor.