Allied health assistants (AHAs) play a vital role in supporting allied health professionals, delivering essential services to diverse patient populations, including older adults, individuals with disabilities, and those transitioning from hospital care.
Each day may involve working in different settings and providing various supports – ranging from treatment area set up to assisting in therapy sessions.
Being an AHA comes with many benefits, such as work flexibility. It may also enable you to explore a healthcare profession or setting – such as aged care or disability support – before committing to it.
However, like any healthcare worker, your role as an AHA carries risks. In this article, AHANA's insurance partner, BMS, discusses the common areas of risk as an AHA, and the benefits of having your own insurance.
Allied health assistants are not regulated by AHPRA like some of the allied health professionals (AHPs), such as physiotherapists or podiatrists. However, Practising AHAs are expected to work within the scope of practice defined by the supervising AHP, and may be required to adhere to any relevant standards and guidelines outlined in their role.
AHANA has established standards for Practicing AHAs which verify the qualifications and experience of those practitioners, as well as a range of other quality measures.
Imagine assisting a patient recovering from a fractured hip. As you help her onto a treatment bed, you accidentally press the bed lever, causing her to fall off.
The patient feels pain in her wrist and hip, and later visits a GP, who confirms she has sprained her wrist. The patient later makes a complaint against you, and you may be held liable. What would you do?
Unfortunately, slips and falls are one of the common areas of risk that can lead to a claim for healthcare workers. Other common areas of risk include:
In the situation above, having your own professional indemnity and public liability insurance policy could help protect you in the event of a claim. Having your own policy can also ensure you're not relying on your employer’s insurance policy, which may be geared more towards protecting your employer. It also helps to ensure you have continued cover, which is important if you transition from one employer to another. Since a claim can happen months after an event, having your own policy may offer greater peace of mind.
Professional indemnity insurance
Professional indemnity insurance protects you against allegations or claims of financial loss due to injury or damages that have resulted from a negligent act, error, omission, malpractice or breach of duty that has arisen out of your professional duty.
Professional indemnity insurance could help cover your legal defence if you are faced with a claim, as well as the cost of patient compensation or damages.
Public liability insurance
Public liability insurance helps cover claims against injury, damage or alleged negligence caused either by you or your business that results in bodily injury or property damage to a third party. Examples include:
As an AHANA member, Practising allied health assistants have exclusive access to the AHANA Member Insurance program with BMS. The program offers a combined Professional Indemnity and Public & Products Liability Policy.
To learn more about the program, visit the insurance page on the AHANA website.
Additional cover is also available under the program. This includes Entity Insurance. To purchase additional cover, please contact the BMS team at ahana@bmsgroup.com.
Disclaimer: You must be a current AHANA member to be eligible for the AHANA member insurance program. You must be part of the AHANA member insurance program in order to access additional cover. If your membership ceases you will not be offered renewal when your policy expires. In arranging this insurance for our members AHANA is acting as a distributor of BMS Risk Solutions Pty Ltd (BMS) AFSL 461594, ABN 45161187980. This insurance policy is issued by BMS under a binder with Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s. When acting under a binder BMS is acting as agent for the insurer and not as your agent. This is general advice only and BMS has not considered whether it was suitable for your particular objectives, needs or financial situation. Please read the Policy Wording and the BMS Terms of Engagement which contains the Financial Services Guide before making a decision about purchasing this policy. AHANA may receive a percentage of the commission paid to BMS by the insurer and/or a fee per policy.