Insurance for medical office and clinic cleaning

How underwriters see medical office cleaning insurance

To an underwriter, a medical office is an office building with three extra questions attached: what your crew might touch, what your crew might damage, and what your crew might take. The core policies don't change. The answers to those questions change the price, the endorsements and sometimes the carrier.

We focus on the work most cleaning companies actually do in healthcare: medical and dental offices, outpatient clinics, physical therapy suites and urgent care centers. A typical night clean covers waiting rooms, exam rooms, restrooms, break rooms and the front desk. Some accounts add a day porter who handles restroom checks and spills while patients are in the building.

Here's what tends to stand out on an application:

• Disinfectant use. Clinics often specify EPA-registered disinfectants and the label's dwell time. More product, more often, means more chance of a splash injury or a damaged surface.
• Sharps and body fluids. Sharps can turn up where they don't belong, like a loose needle in an exam-room trash bag.
• Expensive things in small rooms. Exam tables, dental chairs, monitors, check-in kiosks and imaging equipment sit inches from your spray bottles.
• Controlled spaces. Sample closets, records rooms and alarm codes make key control and hiring practices part of the conversation.
• Patients on the floor. People using walkers, canes and wheelchairs cross the same floors your porter is mopping.

Example scenario: the trash bag in exam room four

A crew member at a family practice pulls a bag from an exam-room bin at 8:15 p.m. A syringe someone dropped in the regular trash goes through the plastic and into her thigh. Her clinic visit, follow-up testing and any lost shifts would usually go to your workers' comp policy. The practice will also want to know how your crew is trained to handle trash in clinical rooms.

Example scenario: the kiosk that stopped working

A two-person crew wipes down a dental office's touchscreen check-in kiosk with a spray disinfectant on a Thursday night. Liquid runs behind the bezel, and the kiosk won't boot the next morning. The practice sends a replacement invoice. Because the crew was cleaning that exact item, standard liability exclusions for property in your care, and for the property you were working on, may limit what your policy pays.

Example scenario: the sample closet comes up short

An urgent care manager tells you two cartons of medication samples are missing after a weekend clean. Nobody saw anything, and no one has been charged. A janitorial bond often requires a conviction before it pays. A crime policy with clients' property coverage doesn't, but it usually requires that the employee be identified. Until that happens, the practice may simply hold back your invoice.