Re: Federal Tort Claims Act Coverage

QUESTION:

I am a physician considering practicing in Illinios. The clinic's malpractice is covered by Federal Tort Claims Act. Is this coverage as good as occurrence based malpractice insurance?? Are their any negatives regarding FTCA??

ANSWER:

Under FTCA you do not have an individual malpractice policy.

If you have FTCA protection, you have financial protection from a malpractice lawsuit.

The United States government would be substituted as the defendant in any malpractice claim for your activities, which are within your scope of employment and within the scope of project of a deemed Health Center.

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) is the federal legislation that allows parties claiming to have been injured by negligent actions of employees of the United States to file claims against the federal government for the harm they suffered.

The FTCA also provides authority for the federal government to defend against such claims.

Amendments to the Public Health Service Act in 1992 and 1995 provide that employees at deemed Health Centers are to be treated as employees of the United States for purposes of medical malpractice. These “employees” include board members, officers, employees and certain contractors of deemed Health Centers. “Employees” are given malpractice protection for actions within their scope of employment, and within the scope of project of a deemed Health Center.

Health Centers eligible for FTCA protection are those funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Primary Health Care under Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act.

(A lot more information is available from the U.S. Health and Human Services website where the above information was fair used and made available as provided in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.)