Posts in Employment
Biden Administration Requires Vaccination for Medicare and Medicaid Certified Providers/Suppliers by January 2022: CMS Issues its Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination Interim Final Rule

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination Interim Final Rule (IFR) on November 4, 2021, the same day the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued its COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). The IFR and ETS complement each other, with both aimed at furthering the Biden Administration’s goal of vaccinating the entire United States healthcare workforce to ensure capacity to serve local and national healthcare needs, the safety of the workforce and patients, and to reduce the risk of continued COVID-19 transmission. Both rules are effective November 5, 2021.

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Considerations for Clinician Contracting – An Employer Perspective

Having written a series of posts over the years addressing employment contracting from the physician perspective, one of our readers reached out to let us know that Nixon Law Group should, likewise, address physician/clinician employment contracting from the perspective of the healthcare employer.  Considerations for Clinician Contracting – An Employer Perspective…

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7 Common Mistakes Physicians Make When Signing a Physician Employment Contract (and How to Avoid Them)

Smart physicians are not immune from making highly regrettable mistakes when it comes to employment contracts. And unlike in medicine, you don't get the option of trying a new treatment plan if the first one doesn't work. Physicians are educated, and intellectually sophisticated. This means that, even though you weren’t trained to read legal contracts in medical school, courts expect that you have read and fully understand the terms of the contracts you sign. That means that, both during and even after your employment, you're stuck with the contract you sign, so make sure you avoid these common pitfalls.

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Stuck in the Middle Again: Protected Workplace Recordings Must Coexist with Patient Privacy

Healthcare providers are highly sensitive to the risks introduced by recordings in the workplace—not the least of which are potential violations of federal and state laws regarding the privacy of their patients and residents.  We have often advised our healthcare clients to enact restrictions on recordings that could introduce unnecessary risk, but a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision, recently upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, indicates that those same restrictions on recordings might, in and of themselves, introduce compliance risk.  In its decision, the NLRB had to determine whether no-recording policies maintained by employer Whole Foods were overly broad by prohibiting all recordings by Whole Foods employees without prior management approval.  The NLRB’s position seems clear: Policies reasonably read as prohibiting all employee workplace recordings violate the National Labor Relations Act.

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Physician Employment Contracts: The Compensation Package

Before signing an employment contract, it is crucial to understand the details of your compensation package.  Often, things are not as straightforward as they may appear, and small details may make a big difference to your take-home bottom line and your lifestyle. Before you sign on the dotted line, consider both the cash and non-cash components and evaluate what is most important to you. 

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