Ascent launches US medical billings E & O insurance

Ascent Underwriting, a Managing General Agent (MGA) specialising in emerging risks, has launched a medical billings errors and omissions insurance product specifically aimed at US healthcare professionals.

CyberPro Medical Billings offers financial protection against the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) billing and coding regulation violations.

Amendments to the billing and coding process for all healthcare providers, when submitting claims for reimbursements for medical services to insurance companies and government led Medicare, have caused increased tightening on regulation.

HIPAA includes a set of rules and regulations that hospitals, individual physicians and other healthcare providers must follow in order to provide their services correctly and compliantly. This ensures there is no breach of confidence whilst maintaining the integrity and availability of patient records.

“As a result of the HIPAA changes medical practitioners have spent thousands of dollars on new technology and have been forced to redesign business processes and software to ensure compliance,” said Gareth Tungatt, a director of Ascent Underwriting. “While there are established frameworks around the billing practices, the current regulatory environment has also seen authorities actively pursuing practices that do not correctly bill, code or process healthcare claims correctly.

“In answer to this issue, Ascent has created CyberPro Medical Billings to provide a comprehensive solution combining protection for both the healthcare data protection risk and the business risks associated non-compliance with HIPAA billing legislation.   Importantly, the cover includes reimbursement for billing audit investigations and regulatory fines or penalties to minimise the potential financial threat.”