Part of being a registered paramedic or emergency medical responder is liability insurance. The Health Professions Act enables the Paramedic Profession Regulation s.14 which states that “An applicant for registration as a regulated member must provide evidence of having the type and amount of professional liability insurance required by the Council”. The Council refers to the Alberta College of Paramedics (the College), our regulatory body.
Liability insurance is designed to protect you in the event that a complaint (unprofessional conduct) is made against you from the public pertaining to your skills, practice or conduct.
It should be clarified that the College’s role is to protect the public and not the practitioner. The Alberta Paramedic Association’s (Association) role is designed to support those registered paramedics and emergency medical responders, including providing a voice for the profession.
Here are some questions that you may want to ask yourself as health care professional as you decide on where you should get your liability insurance:
- Should the same organization whose sole role it is to protect the public and bring you to a hearing of your peers (unprofessional conduct), also be the same organization to negotiate a deal that promotes an insurance company for your personal liability insurance that’s used to defend yourself against that same organization?
- Do you want that same liability insurance company, negotiated by your regulatory body, to be the one that provides your legal counsel that represents you at your hearing, including the dollar amount of coverage you have?
The Association doesn’t believe so. Ponder those thoughts, as we explain further in Part 2 of “Why Liability Insurance Providers are Important”.