Unfortunately you don’t have to be in the Eye Care profession for long before you come across your fair share of problem patients.

Problem patients are hard enough to deal with when you are trying to run a busy practise but if one alleges that you have been negligent or that they are unhappy with your service then they could potentially make a claim against you.

Everybody makes mistakes and no matter how careful you are clients can still come back to you with issues.

While there’s no way to protect your business from challenging patients, you can prepare for claims of Professional Indemnity.

If a patient is dissatisfied then Professional Indemnity Insurance will cover against a wide range of scenarios including:

• You, or another optician in your practise gives negligent advice to a client
• You lose clients data or documents
• An employee commits fraud or is dishonest with a client
• You unintentionally breach copyright or client confidentiality
• If someone believes your business has made a statement which could affect public perception about them
• A client comes back with issues regarding past work you have done for them
• Your work causes injury to someone

It’s difficult for any optician to think about being sued by one of their patients but unfortunately there are people who will seek to make money from your mistakes. If you do encounter a patient who is challenging you there are a few steps you can take to help ease the situation before they take it further.

• Listen to the patients reasons for their dissatisfaction
• Acknowledge the problem
• Apologise for the mistake
• Offer to rectify the situation
• Continue to act professionally
• Analyse what’s caused the dissatisfaction
• Communicate compassionately
• Set limits on what you will tolerate

Even if you think you are safe from patient claims, practising without Professional Indemnity Insurance is regarded as a serious matter, and is essential for anyone looking to safeguard their business against claims of dissatisfaction or professional negligence.

For more information on Professional Indemnity Insurance, or any other type of cover, feel free to contact us or start an online quote with us today.

Written by: admin