SPECIAL EDUCATION BULLETIN - PLI and MLA/T Mobile Collections
- mlpaont
- Mar 10, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 13, 2023
Dear Members,
We have received a few questions from MLA/T members regarding Professional Liability Insurance (PLI) coverage, and we thought we would take this opportunity to share PLI information with all members.
PLI - General Information
PROLINK provides comprehensive PLI that defends you from allegations of errors, omission, or negligence, even if the claims made against you are groundless. Although most lab professionals have PLI coverage through their employers, the PLI offered through the MLPAO provides additional coverage that is specific to the unique risks we face as lab professionals. In addition to the errors and omissions coverage, also included are professional legal and human resources advice, as well as data security and privacy breach consulting services. It even continues to protect you in retirement for claims arising from incidents that occurred before the date you retired. More details can be found in the PROLINK MLPAO Professional Liability Insurance Program.
PLI and MLA/T Mobile Collections
Professional Liability Insurance covers you for your work within your scope of practice as an MLA/T. For example, if you are collecting blood on patients while working in a specimen collection center or hospital setting, you are covered for allegations of errors, omissions, and negligence while you perform phlebotomy. Similarly, if you are doing mobile collections, or collecting blood specimens in a patient’s home, you would receive the same coverage for allegations of errors, omissions, and negligence while you perform phlebotomy. The act of phlebotomy is the same, but the location is different. Other circumstances that you may encounter while in a patient’s home, like a slip and fall, would not be covered by PLI as it is not related to the act of phlebotomy; this would be covered through your employer’s insurance.
If you have any additional questions about PLI, we suggest you contact PROLINK directly at 1-800-663-6828 or visit prolink.insure/MLPAO.
We hope this information is helpful to you.
Sincerely,
Michelle Hoad, CAE Chief Executive Officer Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario www.mlpao.org Office: 416-485-6768 or 1-800-461-6768
The “groundless claims” part is honestly what I’d want most — even if you did everything right, you still lose a ton of time and sleep dealing with it. It’s like when you try a personal style planner and realize the real value is having a framework when you’re stressed, not just the end result.
This is making me realize a lot of us think about “liability” only as a needle-stick or a mislabeled tube, but the data/privacy angle is just as real now. Weird comparison, but it reminds me of how a Ghibli-style photo filter seems harmless until you start thinking about what happens to the images you upload — same idea of hidden risk behind a normal workflow.
Curious if the “same coverage” wording for mobile collections has any common exclusions people should watch for (like working alone, travel between sites, or documentation done after the visit). I only ask because I’ve seen other industries bury the important caveats in fine print — kind of like how this site lists tools and you still have to dig into the details to see what’s actually included.
The mention of privacy/data breach consulting jumped out at me — with more results being accessed on phones and in home settings, that feels like a real-world risk, not just a corporate thing. It also made me think about how often we’re double-checking basics under pressure (like using a handy meq to mg calculator to avoid unit slip-ups), because the small errors are usually what snowball.
I’m glad this calls out that mobile collections are still “within scope” for coverage as long as you’re practicing as an MLA/T — that’s always the part people seem unsure about. It’s funny how the wording in policies can feel as opaque as a game leaderboard like https://blockblast.co when you’re trying to figure out what counts, but this post makes it clearer.