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Finding insurance coverage for yourself and your staff

Practice Management. By Julie A. Jacob, amednews staff. June 25, 2001.

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If you're a physician in a solo or small group private practice, you're a small-business owner as well as a physician. And, like any small-business owner, you have to find insurance coverage -- including health insurance -- for you and your employees.

As any small-business owner will tell you, finding affordable, high-quality health insurance isn't easy when you don't have the clout that large employers have to negotiate rates.

"We have had a problem with spiraling rates and decreasing benefits," said Brian J. Eades, MD, an ob-gyn in a six-physician group in Amarillo, Texas. "We use a local agent who only really exposes us to those products he is familiar with. ... We see the same old options time and again."

But even though it's tougher for small businesses to find coverage than it is for large employers, there are resources to which physicians can turn to help them find affordable, high-quality health insurance.

A good place for AMA members to start is the AMA Insurance Agency. The agency functions as an insurance broker and helps physicians put together a package of life, health and disability insurance for themselves and their employees.

The agency has plenty of experience in working with small groups. Seven people is the average group size that the agency works with, said the agency's director of group sales, Greg Lambert.

While the agency can't offer AMA members discounts specifically on health insurance, it can help them save money on their overall insurance costs, said Lambert. [...]