FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
General Questions
It is a professional indemnity protection plan to cover against dental negligence for all dental practitioners in Malaysia.
- To renew your yearly Annual Practicing Certificate (APC)
- To protect your wealth from any claim against dental negligence
- The most comprehensive syariah-compliant indemnity plan in the market
Syarikat Takaful Malaysia Am Berhad is our insurer.
DentProtect provides the most comprehensive tailor-made plan with up to 16 benefits in an all-in-one package at affordable pricings. Apart from that, our team of advisors consist of experienced dental practitioners to assist you.
Our advisor at DentProtect is MediPlanner. With a line of advisors who are dental practitioners with years of expertise and experience in risk management, medicolegal matters, etc., we understand you better and can assist you for any future claims. Being the first professional advisor team in Malaysia, we indeed have better understanding that enables us to provide more value to our clients and more relevance to dentistry.
It is true that the government will pay for your defence costs and damages claimed. However, the MDA’s investigation and enquiry costs are NOT COVERED.
These incurred costs can go up to a 5-figure expense but if you take DentProtect, these costs will also be covered at only RM 725.50 per year for a RM 500,000 limit of liability.
It means that your policy gives you a back dated cover against your past practices.
Example: You started practice in 2016. Your policy’s retroactive cover is from December 2016 until December 2020 but you received your indemnity policy only in January 2020. Then, in May 2020, you received a legal letter for a case back in 2017. Nevertheless, you do not have to worry because your policy will give you the cover as long as it is not a known claim.
It means that the policy works based on claim, which means if you receive any claim made within the policy active date, the insurer will cover you as long as the case is within the retroactive date as stated in your policy.
Example:
Policy date: 1/1/2020 – 31/12/2020
Claim date: 1/5/2020
Retroactive date: 1/1/2015 – 31/12/2019
Case date: 5/5/2018
You are definitely DentProtect-ed!
Yes! DentProtect gives you up to FREE 6 years run-off cover even after you stop practising.
- Legal representation at inquiries and investigations
- Loss of documents
- Personal Accident Cover
- Aggravated damages, and more!
Aggravated damage is a new type of damage being claimed in court. The latest amount of claim is RM 1.25 million and the highest being awarded is RM500,000.
If your policy does not cover this, you have to pay on your own as the insurer is putting this damage under their exclusion.
Government: within 3 years
Private : within 6 years
Yes! We offer a comprehensive cover including locum cover without additional price.
Yes, you can do it immediately. What you should do is to write to your current indemnity provider on your intention to cancel the existing policy and they will refund you the prorated amount for the period of non-coverage.
Feel free to contact us for further assistance about this
Yes. We provide a Takaful Certificate which is a syariah compliance policy as it is an obligation for Muslims to look for it when it is available.
Our policy is an individual policy cover. For clinic or hospital cover we can provide the protection under Medical Malpractice Establishment Policy.
Feel free to contact our team of advisors for more information.
What is Dental Malpractice?
It is a situation where a dental practitioner or dental centre/clinic (or both) provided ‘bad’ dental care which caused damage to a patient’s oral health. It can include:
- Giving wrong dental advices
- Making a wrong diagnosis
- Prescribing the wrong treatment
- Making mistakes in a surgical operation
- Failing to act on time, etc.
- The ‘mistake’ must be one which fell below the standard of a competent dental practitioner.
- In other words, the court will take into consideration what a competent dental practitioner or dental centre/clinic would have done in that same situation.
- The ‘mistake’ must have caused damage to the patient’s oral health which would not have otherwise occurred.
- The damage or injury to the patient’s oral health completes the legal cause of action of dental negligence.
A civil suit needs to be filed in court within six (6) years from the date of the negligence act complained of or the date from which the injury arises.
- If the civil suit is filed out of time, it can be struck out by the court for that reason alone, regardless of the merits of the case.
If the negligent act resulted in the death of the patient, the estate of the patient (usually represented in law by family members) will have three (3) years to file the civil suit in court.
- General Damages (Non-Quantifiable) Example: Awarded to represent injury and losses, that includes pain and suffering, emotional trauma and loss of amenities of life.
- Special Damages (Quantitative Claim) Example: Cost for surgeries necessitated by the negligent treatment, medication, dental bills, equipment and loss of salary for the period the plaintiff was unable to work due to the injury.
- Aggravated Damages
- Exemplary Damages
- Dental staff: Dentists, Dental specialists, Dental Surgery Assistants (DSA)/Nurses, etc.
- Dental centre
- Dental clinic
This means that the dental practitioner and the dental clinic/centre need to have their own indemnity covers.
From 9 months to 6 years in average cases.
It is an “out of court settlement”, where the cases do not need to be taken into the court for trial.
If you have a dental practitioner professional indemnity protection plan like DentProtect, your insurer will bear all the legal costs and expenses from the beginning until the end of the case.
Example: In 2017/2018, there was a case involving the former Deputy Prime Minister’s son-in-law’s death over a wisdom tooth extraction surgery in which the dental centre was slammed with a hefty fine of RM 320,000 for dental negligence causing death.
In cases like this, DentProtect would be able to pay the legal costs and settlements involved in the case.
