This is correct, but it’s completely up to the doctor to decide. To clarify what she means here, it means that if she proceeds, her malpractice insurance may not cover her for this elective procedure if things go sideways and you decide to sue. It is not that she is not allowed to do it… doctors can basically do anything they want… but it is a purely financial decision to risk her practice over a one-off elective procedure for a single “crazy patient”. This is a very important thing to understand, because it puts all the power into the doctors hands… and if they try to cop out by saying “sorry I’m not allowed”, that’s bullshit.
The point I’m making here is that you can alleviate liability with a legal waiver. Just look at any contract or even a professional services waiver that body piercers make everyone sign. There is a clear “hold harmless” indemnification clause that you should be more than able to replicate for the doctor in such a way that they should feel confident that you will not be in any position to sue them if things go sideways.
It is important to also note that these waivers do not alleviate negligence. I don’t think there is any form of contract that you can sign that would alleviate negligence. The whole idea of a waiver or contract indemnification clause is to indemnify a party or parties from unexpected repercussions and costs associated (including both financial and even loss of life), but negligence is an almost willful disregard that practically ensures a bad outcome, and you cannot sign that kind of thing away. So, if the doctor installs this thing for you and it gets infected and / or something terrible happens, as long as they were not negligent (they used dirty gloves and a rusty scalpel), then the waiver should hold… but if you go to them for treatment and they tell you to walk it off or something and not address the infection and you lose your hand, then that is negligence and it would open the door for a malpractice lawsuit that their insurance company would likely not cover because this was an elective procedure to install something that is not FDA regulated into your body… so you can see where they are coming from.
My point is, offer to supply and sign a solid indemnification waiver. Tell them “I was talking with some of my professional body piercing friends and they all use waivers, and I would be more than happy to supply and sign one to drastically limit your liability exposure.” … see what they say. Also, I would tell them this now, before they come back with their mind made up.