Check out the replay of this great webinar we did with Maureen Werrbach of the Group Practice Exchange. We talked through one of group practice ownership’s biggest questions: employees or contractors?
Play the video to hear what the experts had to say!
Followup
Talk with us about Person Centered Tech’s group practice services
See Maureen’s writeup about contractors vs. employees
For Talking To Your Attorney About Our Contractor Model
First, be sure to watch and understand the above video. You won’t be able to help your attorney understand the proposed model if you don’t understand it yourself.
Second, here is some language you can use when introducing your attorney to the model we propose in the video.
Because compliance with HIPAA requires the adoption and enforcement of extensive organizational policies, there is the potential for HIPAA compliance to create conflicts with employment law where the organization employs contractors as workforce members. We at Person Centered Tech have found this to be especially true in a particular, commonly-used therapy practice model where clinical staff members work as 1099 contractors as opposed to working as W2 employees.
HIPAA-compliant policies and procedures must define rules regarding all equipment and software that is used, how it is used or configured, and how workers behave with regards to security and privacy. In many states and for the contractor clinician model alluded to above, adopting HIPAA-compliant policies may run the risk of creating work requirements which cause those clinician contractors to qualify as W2 employees.
Person Centered Tech proposes a solution wherein the practice takes a stance as a service provider to the clinicians who work as contractors. Those clinicians can execute a HIPAA-compliant Business Associate Agreement with the practice which defines the practice as the Business Associate and the clinician as the Covered Entity for the purposes of that contract.
In this arrangement, each clinician is independently responsible for their own organizational HIPAA compliance, as is the practice. Thus, there is no need to require the clinicians to follow the practice’s own HIPAA-related policies and procedures. Rather, the practice and the clinicians may agree to certain terms of service or other service-level agreements in addition to the BAA, as necessary.
This practice organization needs your advice to determine:
- Does the practice organization run the above-described risk of violating applicable employment law should it require all its current workforce to comply with its HIPAA-related policies and procedures?
- If #1 is true, then is Person Centered Tech’s service-focused model of organizational structure appropriate for this practice’s legal needs?
For more information about Person Centered Tech’s analysis and proposed solutions for this problem, see our video presentation here: https://dev-personcenteredtech.com/2019/11/07/structuring-your-group-practice-for-success-considerations-for-contractors-vs-employees/
Please direct any and all questions regarding this text or its contents to your client. Person Centered Tech will not respond to inquiries unless arranged for with our mutual clients.