Online Signature Legitimateness for Independent Contractor Agreement in United States

How to eSign a document: online signature legitimateness for Independent Contractor Agreement in United States

hi my name is Robert Shelly with Shelly law in my Law Firm assists physician practice owners with drafting employment contract and independent contractor agreements uh today I'm going to talk about how to create a strong independent contractor agreement uh for a physician practice and this will be specifically towards Physicians obviously a physician practice could uh have an independent contractor relationship with you know or NPS or other Allied health professionals but this will just be a 1099 position for a physician uh working with a clinic so there are a number of factors that are important and kind of go into making a strong independent contractor agreement for a physician uh and so let's kind of walk through those factors right now first uh there there is a fine line uh between uh calling someone an independent contractor but their actual job duties are that of an employee um the IRS releases a 20 Factor test that kind of helps people determine whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor uh I find many times an organization is very likely misclassified uh an employee as an independent contractor mostly due to not having to pay benefits or employment tax um so you need to make certain this person that you're going to contract with is actually an independent contractor and doing independent contractor type duties and so some of the factors that go into that how much control you have over their schedule What patients they see what locations they're at how you pay them do you give them benefits do you pay for their malpractice insurance all all of that will go into it so um if you are going to classify somebody and pay them via 1099 um then the most important thing I think is compensation wise is not giving them a straight base salary it doesn't make a lot of sense to me so if you are contracted with the physician and classifying them as an independent contractor but then just paying them a straight Bas salary um that doesn't jive now if you're paying them per shift that certainly would make sense um or an hourly rate as well uh or the probably the safer choice for any practice is to pay them via a productivity percentage so they would get now in private practice almost nobody uses rvus so it would most likely be done through net collections so you would give them a percentage of net Collections and I think it's smart for a number of reasons one when they are paid via net collections there's at least theoretically no absolute certain amount of work that they have to provide and then they're only getting paid for the work that they do there's no pay time off there's there's none of that which leans more towards an independent contractor um how much a percentage usually somewhere between 25 to 35 would make sense it would depend upon kind of the guess Financial stability of the organization and how efficient they are and how much support staff is needed for that physician but normally somewhere between 25 to 35% would make sense and and net collections would be all the money the the practice receives on behalf of the personally performed Services of the physician uh the next thing to think about would be restrictive covenants so non-competes and nons solicits just because it's an independent dep contractor agreement doesn't mean that you can't include those two things and for most practices it's a smart thing uh to do so uh there are I think probably different standards for what's considered a reasonable non-compete in one state versus another there's a handful of states where non-competes are completely unenforceable so uh you'll have to look into that first is what you know how do the courts view non competes in the state that you're that you're in and then once you've determined that crafting a reasonable non-compete um but you certainly as a practice owner would want both of those things the non-solicit and non-c comput the non-solicit would basically prohibit The Physician from actively soliciting employees to come with them and then the patients as well uh next malpractice insurance and benefits I'll kind of lump it into one if they are an independent contractor you most likely should not be paying for any of those things um that clearly would kind of lean more towards an employment situation I have seen some independent contractors where the practice will pay for their malpractice and that's it they won't pay for anything else no you know Health Vision Dental disability life um retirement dues and fees for their license and DEA and that type of thing so they would not pay for any of those things but some will just pay for the Mal practice insurance uh and then lastly notice um kind of the whole point point of an independent contractor agreement is it's kind of like easy in Easy out meaning there's not a ton of strings attached uh either to start the relationship or get out of it now there has to be some kind of notice period for both parties when it comes to a health care provider um mostly for continuity of care so you know if you're in a practice and you have a physician scheduled a month out and they walk into your office one day and say I quit I'm not well you have an entire schedule patience excuse me uh that needs a provider and so I would say at least 30 days would be the minimum amount that I'd want as a practice owner um more towards 60 or 90 would make more sense but no more than 30 days I mean no less than 30 days uh so those are some factors that go into making a strong uh independent contractor agreement for a physician from the practice side of things uh if you have any questions uh or any need a independent contractor agreement drafted feel free to contact my Law Firm at the contact information below in the description um or if you have any questions you can leave those in the comments and I'll answer all those as well so anyway thank you for watching the video take care