Share

Practising medicine in Australia

Medical indemnity cover is the insurance medical practitioners purchase annually to cover themselves for claims made by patients against them for medical negligence or for assistance if doctors are involved in investigations such as coronial inquiries.

All doctors who are employed directly by the Area Health Service in non-specialist or training roles are fully indemnified by the Treasury Managed Fund (TMF) for medical legal statements of claim (ie civil claims). Level 1 Staff Specialists are also indemnified under such arrangement.

All specialist doctors (Level 2-5 Staff Specialists and Visiting Medical Officers (VMOs)) are offered the option of medical indemnity cover by the TMF for all public patients and private paediatric patients.

This is normally arranged prior to the doctor starting and will involve the doctor completing a Service and Liability Contract for the period of the position.

If you are seeing patients privately in your own rooms you will need to have your own annual medical indemnity cover from a government-approved medical indemnity insurer.

HNE Health, for example, recommends that you take out your own private medical indemnity to cover such events as coronial enquiries, Medical Board investigations or disciplinary proceedings. This will give you access to independent legal advice which can be very costly for such inquiries and investigations.

Overseas medical indemnity policies will not provide medical indemnity cover for you in Australia, you will need to arrange Australian based cover for your time in Australia. If you are applying for Medical Board registration that includes seeing private patients you will need to show them proof of your indemnity insurance prior to being granted your Medical Board registration.

Australian medical insurers now only offer medical indemnity on a 'claims made' basis – which means that the medical practitioner must be insured when an incident occurs and when the patient makes a claim. There may be a delay of years between when an incident occurs and when a claim is made. To be covered when the claim is made requires that you maintain your medical indemnity policy continuously or that you pay for 'extended reporting benefits' (also called tail cover or run-off cover) when you cease paying for your policy.

The Australian Government Department of Health and Aging DoctorConnect website has links for more comprehensive information.

Medical indemnity cover is the insurance medical practitioners purchase annually to cover themselves for claims made by patients against them for medical negligence or for assistance if doctors are involved in investigations such as coronial inquiries.

All doctors who are employed directly by the Area Health Service in non-specialist or training roles are fully indemnified by the Treasury Managed Fund (TMF) for medical legal statements of claim (ie civil claims). Level 1 Staff Specialists are also indemnified under such arrangement.

All specialist doctors (Level 2-5 Staff Specialists and Visiting Medical Officers (VMOs)) are offered the option of medical indemnity cover by the TMF for all public patients and private paediatric patients.

This is normally arranged prior to the doctor starting and will involve the doctor completing a Service and Liability Contract for the period of the position.

If you are seeing patients privately in your own rooms you will need to have your own annual medical indemnity cover from a government-approved medical indemnity insurer.

HNE Health, for example, recommends that you take out your own private medical indemnity to cover such events as coronial enquiries, Medical Board investigations or disciplinary proceedings. This will give you access to independent legal advice which can be very costly for such inquiries and investigations.

Overseas medical indemnity policies will not provide medical indemnity cover for you in Australia, you will need to arrange Australian based cover for your time in Australia. If you are applying for Medical Board registration that includes seeing private patients you will need to show them proof of your indemnity insurance prior to being granted your Medical Board registration.

Australian medical insurers now only offer medical indemnity on a 'claims made' basis – which means that the medical practitioner must be insured when an incident occurs and when the patient makes a claim. There may be a delay of years between when an incident occurs and when a claim is made. To be covered when the claim is made requires that you maintain your medical indemnity policy continuously or that you pay for 'extended reporting benefits' (also called tail cover or run-off cover) when you cease paying for your policy.

The Australian Government Department of Health and Aging DoctorConnect website has links for more comprehensive information.

NSW Health has discontinued the allocation of AMC Graduates to intern training positions.

How do I work in NSW?

If you are an International Medical Graduate (IMG) or AMC Graduate there are options to work in NSW via the following pathways:

  • Standard pathway to registration
  • Competent authority pathway
  • Specialist pathway
  • Area of need, and
  • Specialist 7 (1) (conditional specialist) process

More information about the above pathways can be found at the Medical Board of Australia and registration standards at the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency

To obtain a position in NSW Health as part of any of the above pathways to registration, you will need to apply directly for positions which are advertised on the NSW Health recruitment website.