The Scheme Overview

Have you planned for Locum cover during a period for incapacity or illness?

Think for a moment of the consequences on your practice of you being unable to work as a result of accident or illness. Short term absences can probably be managed relatively easily, with minimal disruption to your patients but some extra hours for your colleagues! However, if the absence stretches beyond a month and is likely to last for a reasonable length of time, the problems begin to mount.

Inevitably, you would need a Locum GP to cover your absence. This is not cheap – locum costs have continued to spiral in recent years. The cost does vary depending on where your practice is, but costs of £2,000 a week are certainly not unusual. So, a 3 month absence might cost around £20,000 in locum fees, 6 months over £50,000 and for 12 months… well, you do the maths!

How do you fund this?

The GMS contract currently provides up to £1,750 per week to fund the cost of a locum up to the 26th week of incapacity (reducing by 50% if the period of absence stretches beyond 26 weeks).  But for many GPs this will leave a shortfall against the actual cost of a locum, particularly beyond the 26th week when even part time GPs will face the prospect of having to fund a shortfall.

Clearly, you want to avoid having to meet this expense from your own pocke, so the most cost effective way to meet the costs, or any shortfall, of a locum in these circumstances is through Locum Insurance. This safeguards your income and ensures your practice and patients are relatively unaffected. It also of course removes some anxiety out of the situation, meaning that you can spend more time focusing on your recovery.

Now available with two types of policy, Group or Individual, and two streams of cover, Platinum and Platinum Plus, The Doctor Locum Insurance Scheme has been available for over 30 years, providing peace of mind and benefits to its many members.  Now providing full flexibility in terms of the type of cover provided and with the ability to structure benefit levels to the amount required for each member of the practice team, we have locum insurance solutions to suit all practices, individuals and budgets.

Benefits

The Platinum Plus and Platinum Locum Insurance Schemes provide a solution to suit all practices. Each will pay up to £2,500 a week if an accident or illness stops you from working for more than four weeks and you need to engage a locum. The benefit is payable from the 5th week of incapacity up to the 52nd week, or until you are well enough to return to work if earlier.

Benefit can be tailored to meet individual needs, with cover available in units of £10 of benefit up to £2,500 per week (250 units) and the ability to structure your insurance to tie in with any qualification for the contractual benefits available. This is achieved by providing cover under Plan A (5th-26th week) and Plan B (27th-52nd week) – the benefit amount can be different under each plan to suit your circumstances.

Plans

Claims

Frequently Asked Questions

Doctor Locum Insurance

Contact us

If you would like to enquire about any of the cover mentioned call us on 01277 288231 or email us info@doctor-ins.co.uk