COPIC Comment: The importance of listening to our insureds

Saturday, March 01, 2014 11:38 AM

Ted J. Clarke, MD
Chairman & CEO
COPIC Insurance Company

In my role, I hear a lot of opinions about what COPIC should (and shouldn’t) be doing. There are thoughts that arise during internal meetings, points made by partner organizations, and suggestions from medical colleagues. While these different perspectives provide great insight, they also need to be considered alongside the most important information we receive – feedback from our insureds.

In any business, listening to your customers is key to success. For COPIC, commitment to this principle exists in how we encourage open communication with every physician, medical professional, and health care facility we work with. Their thoughts and ideas are invaluable, and what they see, hear and feel is essential in guiding our decisions and the ways we support improved medicine.

Over the years, we have established several touch points – from electronic surveys to personal interactions – to gather meaningful feedback from our insureds. The following quotes are examples of what they have told us.

“Relationships are important to us as a practice. Price only is not the deciding factor – but it is important.”
All aspects of health care are focusing on how to balance cost with value. At COPIC, we are consistently looking at ways to maintain stable, reasonable premiums and deliver services that meet the needs of insureds. We don’t look at medical liability insurance as a necessary commodity, but instead, view it as a partnership that offers necessary support. Medical professionals are facing substantial challenges, and COPIC strives to be a source for trusted guidance and expert knowledge. 

Our goal is to help insureds prevent adverse outcomes and improve patient safety. However, there are situations when a claim or lawsuit occurs despite best efforts. When medicine meets the standard of care, we want our insureds to have confidence in our ability to defend them. The following quote is from an insured physician who faced a claim:

“Excellent use of experts to thoroughly review records to fully understand the medical issues of the case…I am very pleased with the thoroughness, intellect, and professionalism of [my attorney] and his office staff. They supported me through every step of this stressful process and fortunately we had a good outcome.”
Another important part of seeking feedback is to better understand what resources are important to our insureds, as shown in these comments:

“We use [COPIC] all the time for making decisions about credentialing, physician problems, what is a reasonable procedure at my surgery center…”

“Used to validate and modify policies and procedures regarding risk management, infection control, time-outs…”
These statements represent how COPIC is viewed differently by those we work with, and this feedback helps us develop programs and resources that directly address the needs and concerns mentioned. And by sharing these comments with others, there is expanded awareness on how COPIC supports medical professionals and health care systems, and what resources are available through us.

“I would like to be able to earn more COPIC points online.”
A simple statement, and one that provides a good example on how we take action on what insureds say. In this case, we received several similar comments about the need for “flexible” options with our education activities. We responded by expanding the offering of online courses available through our website to include interactive case studies, videos of popular in-person seminars, and other topics at the forefront of medical liability issues. Here are some comments we received from physicians who recently completed one of our online courses:

“This course is the first I’ve done online. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and ease.”

“This interactive ‘real situation’ is a great way to learn, and makes CME valuable and interesting. I hope you create more of them!”
Staying connected to our insureds is a core value that we will continue to embrace. Their feedback is instrumental to the continuous improvement that makes us better and leads to better medicine for everyone involved.