Insurance Coverage for Hypnosis Practitioners

HypnosisAustralia, November 2005

By Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist & Counsellor
Editorial Director of HypnosisAustralia Online.

The diversity of practitioners practising hypnosis is vast, including hypnotherapists, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, GPs, dentists, anaesthesiologists, all of whom may be considered to be healthcare practitioners. Each of those practitioners needs to carry professional indemnity insurance to cover their primary disciplines and their involvement with hypnosis.

There are also people in the corporate training and education environment who practise hypnosis although they do not always call it hypnosis. And thirdly there are those who cross over between healthcare and education, with corporate training disciplines such as business-related NLP. Richard Bandler once said while presenting in London, when he was talking about how he started NLP, that he practised hypnosis in places where it was not allowed by calling it NLP. Virginia Satir, the family therapist, when being interviewed at the end of her career, said that maybe she had been practising hypnosis all those years, although she did not call it such.

Since hypnosis is a linguistic nominalisation of experiencing hypnosis or being in a hypnotic state, turning it into a noun tends to quantify it as being special circumstances for insurance purposes. Sometimes things go wrong in the healthcare environment, accidents happen, extraneous circumstances interfere with patients' treatments, suicides occur and practitioners make mistakes. All these circumstances place the practitioner in the position where they may be sued, and when a lawsuit is issued, equitable negotiation finishes and the battle of the lawyers begins.

Unless someone has been sued, they could never possibly imagine what a devastating experience that is for all involved, including the families of the plaintive and the respondent. It is important to remember that the longer the case carries on, the more money the lawyers make. So lawyers are not always keen to settle a matter at the earliest opportunity. It is also wise to remember that insurance companies may often try to lower their risks by paying an out-of-court settlement just to dispose of the case, even when the practitioner may be innocent.

Whatever the outcome, being sued for malpractice can be financially devastating and the practitioners can end up saying goodbye to their homes, savings and superannuation, even before they get to have their day in court. Such a case alone can ruin practitioners if the press get involved and decide to make pre-judgments in the media. Under those circumstances the media becomes a pack of vultures that pick away at that practitioner's reputation, even before a case is heard. Trial by media is one of the worst ruinations and humiliations our time can offer.

Upon the eventuality of a lawsuit, a practitioner needs the kind of financial backing that only professional indemnity insurance can provide. All associations involved with hypnosis need to ensure that all of their members have the appropriate kind of insurance to cover their involvement in hypnosis. The insurance needs to cover their primary disciplines and the crossover of hypnosis-applied skills. Professional associations that do not require insurance coverage to be part of the membership criteria for people practising hypnosis are putting their association and members in danger of being sued for not taking sufficient care with their membership.

What is also important to consider is that accidents do occur because we are all human. So the client needs to be able to claim against a practitioner if they have suffered injury from negligent of faulty treatment. While lawsuits for hypnosis applications are incredibly difficult to be proved, they have been from time to time and those aggrieved patients do need to be able to gain compensation.

What is also important for associations to consider are the parameters of treatments being offered by practitioners of hypnosis. GPs offering psychotherapy is plainly a contravention of experience-applied application since a 30-hour training in hypnosis that some GPs undergo does not a psychotherapist make. There was a case in the UK some years ago of a GP, who underwent insufficient training for the kind of hypnosis he was using, had an accident, his insurance company failed to pay out because he was working out of his depth, and he was professionally and financially ruined.

For dentists training in hypnosis for analgesia and anaesthesia does not constitute the kind of psychological training that needs to be gained in order to deal with dental phobias. Should an accident occur, their insurance would be invalid.

Psychiatrists setting themselves up as hypnotherapists after receiving little more than a few weekends' training in hypnosis also calls into question the appropriateness of their experience with hypnosis and insurance cover validity.

Students of hypnosis, counselling and psychotherapy often operate without insurance. Colleges, schools and universities will generally cover the student when they are operating on the premises. What happens, however, is that the student goes way from the learning institutions and starts practising on people without the appropriate insurance cover. Learning institutions need to be responsible and ensure that their students are practising at any stage with the appropriate insurance cover.

Associations which accept students from certain schools also need to stipulate to those schools that to be accepted, the student must have had appropriate insurance cover while studying and beginning to practise. The schools themselves often do not like a clause like this because it would mean that the students would be subject to more expense while studying but in reality the student having this insurance cover is necessary.

What the practitioner involved in hypnosis needs to consider is that many lawsuits filed against healthcare professionals are what is called nuisance suits. That is they are not real suits, simply opportunistic clients who are seeking large settlements from practitioners and their insurance companies. These suits can devastate a practitioner unless they have the appropriate kind of insurance cover to defend themselves against ruin.

Hypnotherapists generally practise under what is called para-medical insurance policies and must specifically be insured for hypnosis. Psychologists practise under psychologists' insurance but they do also have to have added recognised hypnosis training to be covered to practise hypnosis and that has to be added to their insurance policy. Many GPs and other medical practitioners are now offering hypnosis, thinking that their medical insurance will cover them for such service, but it will not, and an insurance company may abandon them if there is a lawsuit for the malpractice of hypnosis.

Another area in which many practising as hypnosis professionals are underinsured is when practitioners are practising from parts of their own home. There is a need to be aware that not only does a practitioner require professional liability insurance but also public liability insurance to ensure that if a client has an accident on the premises, then the practitioner is covered for any compensation. Some insurance companies cover both kinds of insurance under one policy but some policies do not and there may be a need to have separate insurance for public liability.

Some practitioners practise out of different health centres and in some centres the public liability may be covered for all people on the premises. In other centres, however, the centre may require the practitioner to additionally cover their own public liability. It is advisable for practitioners to check the small print of their policies.

The boards of all associations that represent professional healthcare workers using hypnosis would be wise to review their policies regarding hypnosis-applied insurance. Many hypnosis practitioners may be practising outside their educated, experienced, supervised criteria and insured roles. Practitioners need to stay within their disciplinary experience and check with their professional insurance companies exactly what they are covered for. As with all good medicine, prevention is always the better part of cure.

©HypnosisAustralia, November 2005