Malpractice Insurance

Physician malpractice insurance and employment standards

Only a small group of states explicitly require physicians to carry liability insurance to practice:

Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin

Meanwhile, states like Pennsylvania, New York, New Mexico, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Wyoming tie malpractice coverage to participation in patient compensation funds or legal protections—creating indirect but very real pressure to carry coverage.

But here’s the bigger truth:

Regardless of state law, most hospitals and health systems require malpractice insurance for credentialing and privileges.

So in reality, the system enforces a standard that legislation often does not.

That distinction matters:

What is legally required

What is professionally expected to practice

And that gap is where many healthcare providers misunderstand their risk.

For athletic trainers, this is especially important.

Too often, ATs rely solely on employer-provided liability coverage. But those policies are designed to protect the organization first, not necessarily the individual clinician. Coverage may be shared, limited, or disappear the moment your employment status changes.

If you’re making clinical decisions, you carry clinical risk.

And that means your protection shouldn’t be conditional.

Athletic trainers should be thinking beyond employer coverage and considering individual professional liability insurance as part of practicing like a healthcare provider—not just working like an employee.

Because there’s a difference between being included in a policy…

and actually being protected.