As a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE), you strive to provide the highest level of care and the best quality of life for your residents. To a large extent, that means building comfort and convenience into their experience. And from that angle, offering additional services like onsite medical care or physical therapy makes a lot of sense.
Before you add new services to your facility, though, it’s critical that you talk with your insurance agent. While these additional services can certainly improve your RCFE, they can also heighten your risk. A conversation with your agent helps to limit that exposure.
When New Services Can Leave You Exposed
Let’s say your facility has decided to open up a new physical therapy (PT) wing. Offering onsite PT helps you best serve your existing residents and attract new ones. But it does open you up to increased risk.
If, for example, one of your residents gets hurt while at PT, there’s a chance they or their family could sue for damages. If you haven’t discussed your new PT service with your insurance agent, this function of your business may not be covered. If you’re found liable for the injury, there’s a world in which you could need to cover the settlement yourself.
That said, if you loop in your insurance agent before you start offering the new PT service, this shouldn’t be the case. Your agent can help you explore expanding your RCFE liability insurance or adding supplemental insurance to ensure your PT facility is covered. They might also have other tips to help here, like hiring outside physical therapists to come in and requiring them to carry their own liability coverage.
When Services Can Lower Premiums and Other Costs
All of that said, your additional services could also help to lower your risk — and in turn, your insurance premiums.
Say, for example, that adding onsite medical care means that you’ll have a trained medical professional at your facility for all or much of the day. With someone to lean on if any of your residents needs emergency care, you’re better able to attend to any urgent needs. This showcases a high level of attentiveness to your residents, lowering your risk for a negligence claim. As a result, this change could potentially help you lower your insurance rates.
The Key Takeaway: Keep Your Insurance Agent in the Loop
Ultimately, each facility is as unique as the services it offers and the residents it serves. As a result, it’s difficult to say when adding new services like onsite medical care or physical therapy will increase or decrease your risk. To a large extent, that depends on the capabilities of your facility and the training of the people who will offer the service.
All told, with so many factors at play, the best way to ensure you have sufficient coverage for any new services is to talk with your insurance agent. The sooner you start this conversation, the more your agent can help you make any adjustments needed to limit the risk associated with the service.
If you want to discuss any new services you’re considering with an RCFE insurance expert, we’re here. Contact our InsureMyRCFE team at (805) 413-5668.
