Allied Healthcare Professional Liability Insurance

Categories: Insurance, Education

Quick, name a healthcare professional. Okay, we bet you said "doctor." Name another one. Okay, we bet you said "nurse" this time. Name a third one. Okay, we're less confident about this one, but chances are good you said "pharmacist."

Now name one more. Wait! Wait!...Before you do, another prediction: the next job you're about to name is an allied healthcare professional. Basically, this category represents a broad swath of healthcare professions, anything outside what might be considered the hard-core traditional categories of medicine, nursing or pharmacy.

You may think those three sectors cover pretty much everything, but you're forgetting a lot of things relevant to how healthcare works in the modern world. Allied healthcare professionals include things like the technicians that run equipment, like sonograms or MRI machines, or non-doctor specialists like physical therapists, or gigs like nutritionist or massage therapist. An allied healthcare professional is basically any profession in healthcare outside of actual medicine (See: Allied Healthcare Professional). This includes things like dentists, various technicians (running MRIs and sonograms) and all types of therapists, such as physical therapists and occupational therapists. They are allies… like NATO. Hence the catchy title.

Allied healthcare professional liability insurance protects these folks from potential lawsuits. Think of it as a kind of medical malpractice insurance for non-doctors.

So your dentist pulls the wrong tooth and you sue him over it. If he has sufficient allied healthcare professional liability insurance, the insurance company will cover his legal fees and any potential judgement, up to whatever amount is stated as part of the policy. Hopefully, you can take that sweet insurance payout and get your tooth fixed (though, presumably with a different dentist).



Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)