Running a medical practice today means navigating complex operational, business, and legal challenges. In this season opener, hosts Brad and Michael share the story of a California physician who thought firing a toxic practice manager at his longevity clinic would be simple—until it was not. What began as a routine staffing decision quickly uncovered employees misclassified as independent contractors, blurred ownership language, and personal relationships complicating business operations. Learn the small missteps, like misclassifying employees or casually using the term “partner”, that can lead to serious legal and financial consequences, and what you can do to prevent them.
Listen to the full episode using the player below, or by visiting one of the links below. Contact ByrdAdatto if you have any questions or would like to learn more.
Transcript
*The below transcript has been edited for readability.
Intro: [00:00] Welcome to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. Legal issues simplified through real client stories and real-world experiences. Creating simplicity in three, two, one.
Brad: [00:00:13] Well, welcome back to another episode of the Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd. Now, Michael, guess what? We are launching season 22. Season 22. Am I saying that correctly?
Michael: [00:00:26] I think so.
Brad: [00:00:26] Season 22.
Michael: [00:00:28] Yeah.
Brad: [00:00:28] That’s amazing.
Michael: [00:00:29] Well, Brad, as business attorneys for health care practices, we meet a lot of interesting people and learn their amazing stories. This season’s theme, Brad, are you ready for it?
Brad: [00:00:40] Ready.
Michael: [00:00:40] All right. The business of medicine today.
Brad: [00:00:44] Ooh.
Michael: [00:00:44] Gone are the days of grandpa’s medical practice with paper charts and old-school treatments. We’ll confront the business and health care issues faced by the modern medical practice.
Brad: [00:00:56] That’s awesome. It’s going to be fun. Though we’ll talk about, you know, compliance issues with grandpa’s medical practice. That’ll probably be fun. But for example, what would grandpa have to think about putting leeches all over a patient’s body?
Michael: [00:01:09] You mean from a compliance perspective?
Brad: [00:01:11] Yeah.
Michael: [00:01:11] Yeah. I would start with standard of care, of course. You know, is it actually doing anything beneficial? And I do wonder, like, where in the world do they get those leeches, and where were they stored? Was there a company that sold live leeches back in the day?
Brad: [00:01:32] I’m sure there are a diverse range of leechpreneurs specializing in collecting and selling leeches.
Michael: [00:01:39] Okay. All right, Brad. We need to focus.
Brad: [00:01:41] Okay.
Michael: [00:01:42] Or as my daughter, Ellix, would say, “We need to lock in.”
Brad: [00:01:44] Lock in. Got it.
Michael: [00:01:45] Okay. But first, we need to start the season with a little sports talk.
Brad: [00:01:50] Love it.
Michael: [00:01:50] Okay. I found an unlikely sport that has been… It’s even been an exhibition at the Olympics, and I bet you’ve never heard of it.
Brad: [00:02:00] Beer golf?
Michael: [00:02:02] Um, no.
Brad: [00:02:04] Okay.
Michael: [00:02:04] I don’t think that’s ever been an exhibition.
Brad: [00:02:06] Oh, just-
Michael: [00:02:06] But it… Back when I played… Actually, I, I think that’s just called golf.
Brad: [00:02:11] Oh, okay.
Michael: [00:02:12] Yeah. Are you familiar with chess boxing?
Brad: [00:02:17] No, but I’m somewhat interested now.
Michael: [00:02:20] Okay. So, the concept came from a fictional French novel and was brought to life in 2003 with the first real match.
Brad: [00:02:29] It feels like you’re trying to describe Quidditch.
Michael: [00:02:33] No, Brad. You know I will not tempt you with Harry Potter talk or other topics where you may have action figures at home.
Brad: [00:02:41] However, based on a French novel, we have chess boxing, so you’re saying there’s still a chance for Quidditch.
Michael: [00:02:49] I did not say that. So let me tell you about chess boxing.
Brad: [00:02:53] Okay.
Michael: [00:02:53] So it’s, it’s not like Quidditch in your imaginary world.
Brad: [00:02:56] Okay.
Michael: [00:02:57] The athletes start by donning their gloves and fighting for three minutes.
Brad: [00:03:03] Got it.
Michael: [00:03:04] When the bell rings, they strip off their gloves and turn to the chessboard and start playing chess.
Brad: [00:03:13] Okay, this kind of feels like they’re doing something when they did with Olympic sports a billion years ago with the biathlon, where they blended cross-country skiing with rifle marksmanship. But chess boxing sounds like it could be more for… What do you call them again? Nerds?
Michael: [00:03:27] Hey, no judgment, Brad. This is a safe space.
Brad: [00:03:30] Okay.
Michael: [00:03:31] The match continues in this pattern.
Brad: [00:03:35] Okay.
Michael: [00:03:36] Boxing, chess, boxing, chess.
Brad: [00:03:40] Okay.
Michael: [00:03:41] Until there’s a checkmate or a knockout, which you might also call a checkmate. Or a judge’s decision.
Brad: [00:03:49] Okay. I would recommend, if we were going to do this, that you send your best boxers in the sport just to knock that other nerd out, and just… You don’t need to worry about the checkmate part.
Michael: [00:04:01] Yeah. Well, the article I read, Brad, was a little bit more, you know, nuanced than that.
Brad: [00:04:08] Okay.
Michael: [00:04:09] And a competitor, he said the actual key to success, at the highest level of chess boxing, not at your basic beat up a nerd, being a bully in middle school level- … um, but he said that the key to success is actually the minute between rounds. He said the successful athletes are able to control their breathing and switch from that kind of amygdala-triggered, high-octane fight into cold calculation.
Brad: [00:04:40] Ooh. Unless, of course, they’re knocked out.
Michael: [00:04:42] Back to your middle school mindset. I probably don’t even have to ask this based on where you’ve been taking this, but if you had to compete and could pick your opponent, would you pick a boxer who had never played chess, or a chess player who had never boxed?
Brad: [00:04:58] I think the audience probably knows the answer, but as someone who actually, who’s been punched in the face more than once in my life, I would take the chess player who has never boxed. What about you?
Michael: [00:05:08] Well, I’ve never boxed or played chess, so clearly, I’m going to pick the chess player so that I have a chance to physically survive the competition.
Brad: [00:05:16] Exactly.
Michael: [00:05:17] Okay. I do think chess boxing should be the official sport for the business of medicine, Brad.
Brad: [00:05:23] Okay.
Michael: [00:05:24] So you have to have mad chess skills to navigate compliance.
Brad: [00:05:29] True.
Michael: [00:05:30] So we got that.
Brad: [00:05:31] Yeah.
Michael: [00:05:31] I think you have to have mad boxing skills to take the repetitive punch in the nose that is running a business.
Brad: [00:05:39] Fair point. Nice push into, I think this season’s theme, which means I think you’re probably at that point where it’s time to transition jumping into maybe today’s story.
Michael: [00:05:47] All right. Let’s get into it. Our story today, Brad, starts with a family practice physician in California who owns and operates a longevity clinic.
Brad: [00:05:58] Okay.
Michael: [00:05:58] We’ll call him Dr. Tyson.
Brad: [00:06:00] Mm. I do approve of that name, Dr. Tyson. Maybe tell the audience who’s not following along, why did you select that name?
Michael: [00:06:07] This is an ode to “Iron Mike” Tyson. He was more a fighter than a strategist.
Brad: [00:06:14] Okay. I like him so far.
Michael: [00:06:16] And we’ll call his clinic Octagon Longevity.
Brad: [00:06:20] You’re really blending your sports, right here. I’m guessing you’re keeping up with the fighting theme, so I’m pretty sure Mike Tyson probably never stepped into the MMA fighting octagon before, but you know, the day’s not over yet.
Michael: [00:06:34] That’s true. Yeah. If anyone’s going to do it, it might be him. I mean, he did just fight, like, in the last year, but-
Brad: [00:06:40] Yeah, he’s like 90.
Michael: [00:06:42] But, no, Brad, I’m keeping you on your toes. I like the sound of Octagon Longevity better than Boxing Ring Longevity.
Brad: [00:06:49] Agree, and it’s a good name. And while we’re sitting here, I’m going to reserve Octane Longevity on the World Wide Web just to have it for myself.
Michael: [00:06:58] Oh, okay. Well, good luck with that.
Brad: [00:07:00] All right.
Michael: [00:07:01] Dr. Tyson reached out to us asking to talk because he was having problems with one of his employees.
Michael: [00:07:09] This employee was the practice manager.
Michael: [00:07:12] And was creating a toxic work environment with her manipulation of the team and Dr. Tyson. We will call her Ms. Fisher. She’s named as an ode to the famous chess player, Bobby Fisher.
Brad: [00:07:28] I feel like now that I’m thinking about it, we may have used Mike Tyson and Bobby Fisher as characters in other stories in the past, but you know, honestly, I’m just way too lazy to check it, so I’m definitely going to allow it. It makes sense still with the boxing and chess play.
Michael: [00:07:42] And I’m guessing they weren’t in the same episode before.
Brad: [00:07:44] I don’t think so.
Michael: [00:07:45] Because I just learned about this chess boxing.
Brad: [00:07:47] Yeah. I agree.
Michael: [00:07:48] Okay. All right. So, I scheduled a call with Dr. Tyson, and it was confusing to say the least.
Brad: [00:07:55] Okay because he was playing chess and boxing at the same time?
Michael: [00:08:00] No. I mean, have you ever heard Dr. Mike Tyson talk?
Brad: [00:08:04] Hey, he’s a good philosopher.
Michael: [00:08:05] Yeah. No. Dr. Tyson started by saying that Ms. Fisher and the rest of the team, which is about half a dozen in total, were 1099.
Brad: [00:08:18] Ooh, I think we actually have a, a real first vocabulary word of the season. For those not familiar with 1099ing is that means they’re treated as independent contractors. And you know that Ms. Fisher, I think in the story, if I remember, you said was an employee, though.
Michael: [00:08:33] Yes, that’s what I was told. That’s why I started getting my first source of confusion in this conversation.
Brad: [00:08:40] Okay.
Michael: [00:08:41] He had this toxic employee, so understanding the legal rights to address the problem are important. And so, you know, if she was an employee, she would have protections under state and federal employment laws, so these would have to be navigated if she was an employee. But as I said, he said she was a 1099.
Brad: [00:09:04] But these laws, typically the protection laws that you’re referencing, really don’t always apply to independent contractors. Of course, California is notorious for being very pro-employment law, so that could be a good thing for him if she’s an independent contractor.
Michael: [00:09:21] Yeah. No.
Brad: [00:09:22] But, I won’t even get into the whole law piece of that.
Michael: [00:09:24] Yeah, I know.
Brad: [00:09:27] I’ll let you stick to the story.
Michael: [00:09:28] Yeah. No, I mean, it does at first blush, you’re like, “Oh, good. Well, relief, not subject to California employment laws.” So, on the surface, it seems much easier to solve because an independent contractor can be easily terminated.
Brad: [00:09:41] Yeah. And I’m pausing you with the statement, quote-unquote, I think you said, “On the surface”?
Michael: [00:09:48] Yes, Brad. The flag for me is that, as I said, he had referenced Ms. Fisher as an employee, and also had a flag that he had said that the entire team was independent contractors.
Brad: [00:10:05] Yeah. And for those following who may have heard this before, this is a massive red flag that your entire staff are independent contractors. And for those wondering why it is a red flag, it has to do with proper classification of employees, or in this case, potential misclassification of employees. And for the misclassification it is really a significant issue, especially for smaller business, where the owners often don’t really realize that how you classify employee is pretty important. So, a common mistake is that all my workers are independent contractors or 1099, or instead of properly probably classifying as all as employees/W-2 workers.
Michael: [00:10:42] Exactly. And, you know, we’re in California, which surprise, surprise, has its own stuff.
Michael: [00:10:49] So I started asking questions. Ms. Fisher and the other employees all worked full-time for Octagon Longevity, and were essentially treated like employees in every sense of the word, other than their paycheck classification.
Brad: [00:11:08] You’re not going to be surprised by this statement, but I’m not really considered a grandmaster in chess, but I think so far, this is not a good outcome for our client.
Michael: [00:11:20] Yeah. I think the audience also knows you’re not a grandmaster chess player, Brad.
Brad: [00:11:23] Okay. Okay.
Michael: [00:11:24] But they probably are following the same logic that this doesn’t sound good. Yeah. Not good. We had to start shifting our strategic conversations, um, to talk about misclassification risk. So, you know, if he’s treating her like an independent contractor and but she’s actually like an employee, this is a different type of conversation. So, Dr. Tyson had this toxic person in Ms. Fisher, and misclassification risk is very real, especially if he were to terminate their relationship.
Brad: [00:12:03] This is sounding really messy, Michael.
Michael: [00:12:06] Yeah. It was difficult to walk through this risk with him because the CPA that he was working with had recommended for simplicity that he treat everyone like a 1099 when he started the practice.
Brad: [00:12:22] Yeah. You know I’ll just say this. Most experienced CPAs or your business consultants, they’re going to be aware of how to properly classify workers and understand the basic difference between an employee and an independent contractor, meaning that they know how important proper classification for tax purposes and the potential risk associated with misclassification. However, the depth of understanding can really, unfortunately, vary significantly based on the level of expertise of those outside consultants you’re working with. And unfortunately, Michael, we have encountered those who are not fully aware of the complex criteria set by the state or federal government to determine what is the status, and then help create sometimes, for, as you said, simplicity, but then that causes potential misclassifications.
Michael: [00:13:08] Yeah. I mean it was a very real risk. I mean, I think you and I both would have our antennas up at this type of scenario. And I tried to walk through this. It took literally 20 minutes of trying to explain what misclassification risk was, and trying to explain why, you know, he’s got himself a real situation here with Ms. Fisher. And I was having to repeat myself several times as I was walking through all this. And just when I thought we were kind of getting on the same page, Dr. Tyson threw out another haymaker.
Brad: [00:13:51] Ooh. First, nice use of the boxing word. Second, if Dr. Tyson had connected with you, you would be on the ground crying probably, or just out cold.
Michael: [00:14:01] True.
Brad: [00:14:02] Yeah.
Michael: [00:14:02] True. Yes. Yeah. So, almost as an afterthought, he said that Ms. Fisher had been his partner for a little over a year.
Brad: [00:14:13] Wait, wait. What? Wait. My compliance brain is on fire right now. This is California, right? You said California.
Michael: [00:14:19] Yes.
Brad: [00:14:19] Which has the strongest, or not the… Well, a very strong CPOM state.
Michael: [00:14:23] Yes.
Brad: [00:14:24] And a practice manager cannot be an owner of a medical practice unless she had some license, which you did not mention. So, did they have an MSO, Michael?
Michael: [00:14:35] Brad, welcome to my thoughts in that conversation.
Brad: [00:14:39] All right there.
Michael: [00:14:40] All right there. And I knew that we had not set up an MSO for them, because we had been representing Dr. Tyson. Although we did not set up the original professional corporation when he started the practice, but the thought that he had a partner was completely out of left field.
Brad: [00:15:01] Yeah. So I’m assuming you had a follow-up question and what did Dr. Tyson say?
Michael: [00:15:07] Well, I spent another 20 minutes walking through corporate practice of medicine issues and ownership. And so, it was just like this repeat. I was, like, giving a class on misclassification, and then next thing you know, I’m giving a class on CPOM and ownership. And I discussed how a partner is yet a different type of relationship than employee or contractor. And so, we would need to look at their ownership documents to see if there was a way or a path to deal with Ms. Fisher and get rid of her as an owner.
Brad: [00:15:46] You might have to cut this, Kennedy, but that actually is sound advice. I don’t know what you were thinking at the time, but good job.
Michael: [00:15:52] Yes. Yes.
Brad: [00:15:52] And as this is probably where, like, a whiteboard session would probably, you know… you might be running out of space with the misclassification side of it and the CPOM, but I could see you using that as a tool to help kind of explain it all.
Michael: [00:16:04] All good, except once again, at the end when I thought I’d finally connected, Dr. Tyson clarified even further.
Brad: [00:16:13] Oh, no.
Michael: [00:16:14] Yes.
Brad: [00:16:14] I don’t know if we want to know.
Michael: [00:16:17] After getting through all of that, and he was so nice to let me sit there and explain myself for 20 minutes again, so now we’re definitely well into an hour on this call, he said that he didn’t mean that she owned the business when he said she was a partner. He meant that Ms. Fisher was his life partner and that they’d been living together for a year. She was not a partner in the practice.
Brad: [00:16:41] Well, I would say that felt like you did land an uppercut in the middle of this wild story here. This entire conversation is actually starting to make me dizzy. Maybe it’s all the taking off the gloves and punching the nerd and trying to do chess afterwards, but, um, these incorrect vocabulary words are really wrecking my brain. I don’t even think I could have made up a crazy story like this.
Michael: [00:17:02] Yeah. I mean, well, here we are. We don’t have ownership issues to solve. But now, for the third time in the conversation, my brain’s going off thinking, “Okay, now we have a personal relationship between an owner and an employee.” And what’s crazy is that they were in a relationship, and then he hired her on because his girlfriend, or life partner, was between jobs.
Brad: [00:17:34] Life partner.
Michael: [00:17:35] And so he’s like, “Well, I need a practice manager, so why don’t you come be my practice manager?” Why don’t we go to break? And then we’ll talk about legal considerations with this development and what happened with Dr. Tyson and Ms. Fisher in their chess boxing match.
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Brad: [00:18:30] Well, welcome back to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd. Now, Michael, as you said, this season, season 22, the theme is the business of medicine today. And you started off this season with a doozy of multiple layers of confusion. I’m confused. I’m sure the audience is confused. There’s so many different terms, including the term partner that get thrown out. So maybe for our audience members, a quick recap of all these moving pieces.
Michael: [00:18:57] Yeah. So, we’ve got Dr. Tyson.
Brad: [00:18:59] Got him.
Michael: [00:19:00] Owner, physician.
Brad: [00:19:01] Doc, got it.
Michael: [00:19:02] And we got Ms. Fisher. And Octagon Longevity is the name of the practice.
Brad: [00:19:08] Got it.
Michael: [00:19:09] And so we get a call because we got Ms. Fisher being a toxic employee. Employee is the first word.
Brad: [00:19:18] Yeah.
Michael: [00:19:18] Which led me down a long trail. Well, what actually led me down the long trail quickly was him saying that she was 1099, and so independent contractor, misclassification, you know, path. And then he said no, she’s his partner, in quotes, that as it turns out after explaining corporate practice of medicine and ownership, that no, that’s a life partner. And so, where we left off is, his life partner, who he lives with, is a toxic employee in his practice. He’s trying to figure out how he can get rid of this person and yeah, that’s where we are.
Brad: [00:20:06] All right, so I got it. We’re trying to figure out, can we fire this toxic life partner, who’s misclassified? Dr. Tyson wanted to fire this life partner, so maybe we can start, maybe we can start discussing, jumping right back there, and what are the risks from that perspective?
Michael: [00:20:22] Well, I mean, the obvious is you’ve got… This is the person that you go home to every night. I mean, that’s where I was like-
Brad: [00:20:28] Oh, I thought you were going to say you had to change the locks of the house.
Michael: [00:20:30] No. Well, I didn’t know. I’m like, “What, are you breaking up also?” And as it turns out, no.
Brad: [00:20:37] Oh, okay.
Michael: [00:20:37] Yeah. He wanted me to help him fire her and stay together. Which you know, are my limitations on how he’s going to pull that off, I don’t know. I mean do roses work after you fire your life partner?
Brad: [00:20:54] Well, what if you give them, like, you know, a dozen roses and you open the card and it says, “I love you and you’re fired.”
Michael: [00:20:59] Yes.
Brad: [00:20:59] It’s like, you know, a balancing act.
Michael: [00:21:00] Maybe “you’re fired, and I love you.” I don’t know. But, you know, of course, all I could really hone in on was the business side. But you have to acknowledge that it’s super messy. Like, you know, that if, if it blows up on the business side and they break up on the personal side, then now you got lots of emotions involved, and you’re in the state of California, where you still have this original conversation about misclassification risk. And, so, you know, someone that’s working full-time, and being treated in every sense of the word like an employee, but being taxed as an independent contractor, you know that’s a real risk. And so, you know, I think the focus initially was, you know, really how he can leverage the personal relationship side of their conversation, and can he have a conversation about that it’s not a good idea for them to continue working together.
Brad: [00:22:21] Yeah.
Michael: [00:22:21] Because they want to preserve the relationship.
Brad: [00:22:25] Yeah, and I’ll defend Dr. Tyson a little bit here in the sense of… I mean, we hear that all the time. People throw out the language “partner” all the time. But in reality, maybe you should be saying, you know, this is someone you’re collaborating with, or a vendor, or a marketing ally, or in this case, life partner. Because the term itself, actually, to those following from a legal perspective, it has a precise term and that’s why you dove quickly into it. But typically, it’s describing a relationship between two or more people carrying out a business with a common view towards profit, right? This definition really implies there’s some shared control over the profits and liabilities, and each partner in a typical and actually true partnership have unlimited joint liability, meaning that one partner can be responsible for the entire debts, even at the stake, you know, even at, no matter what size the business is. And so, when we hear those terms, I mean, our, our little… Uh, you jumped into the governing documents and other things, but that just shows you why at the very end of that conversation, you were still so thrown off by so many different moving pieces.
Michael: [00:23:28] I know. Yeah. And, and so I talked a little bit about this a couple of times, but Brad, talk about what is the misclassification risk and potential impact to the practice if Ms. Fisher and all these other employees were in fact considered to be misclassified?
Brad: [00:23:52] Well, in this case, cause they’re in California, the risk associated with misclassification is severe. First off, Dr. Tyson can be hit with financial penalties from the IRS, and in this case, the California state tax agencies, because they actually have a law on this about misclassifying employees. Additionally, if that does happen, he could owe back taxes, including unpaid Social Security and Medicare taxes. So okay, we got penalties, we got back taxes. And finally, in some states, and I can’t remember if California’s one of them… the individual employee can actually, who was misclassified themselves, they actually can file lawsuits on their behalf for penalties and other things. So, it’s just an unbelievably complete nightmare that in this case, since the beginning of time, it sounds like the entire staff was misclassified. If the way you were kind of describing that day-to-day, everyone was there under the same hours with the same kind of controls, there’s no way that they would have met any of the exceptions to the rule, and they would all probably have been classified as true employees.
Michael: [00:25:03] Yeah.
Brad: [00:25:03] W-2s.
Michael: [00:25:04] And so what we also talked about, is a great point, Brad, is that in California it is a very public risk, cause you’ve seen all the Uber lawsuits and all that stuff. So, you know, that was all about misclassification. And so, there’s all these laws, legislations passed in the last several years, and so the fact that this was a very visible area of risk raises the stakes if you’re firing your life partner and they decide that they’re not happy about it. And by the way if she has been misclassified, then what kind of employment claims does she make saying, “Look, I was really an employee. You misclassified me, so you wrongfully terminated me.” And, you know, is there harassment claims or other things that relate, that she would try to connect to their, to their relationship?
Brad: [00:26:07] Right. And I was just talking, Michael, a second ago about the legal term of partner, of like how we look at it from, jumping back to partner. I know we’re going back and forth to misclassification, but I want to get back to that term partner. Describe maybe for our audience other aspects about if you truly are in a partnership, like how do, how could that happen? What are the other things you look at besides what I just described, just on a straight level?
Michael: [00:26:30] Yeah. I mean to recap what you’re saying, I mean, you know, people commonly use the word partner.
Brad: [00:26:36] Right.
Michael: [00:26:37] They say, “They’re my partner,” and they don’t realize the impact. I mean, in medicine you’ll see doctors in practices all the time that are like, “They’re a partner. Here’s my partner.” And, you know, that’s just the term that they use, but oftentimes they’re employees. And so the problem is, and you kind of spoke into this a little bit, is that a partner is a legal term for the partnership laws of most states.
Brad: [00:27:07] Yeah.
Michael: [00:27:08] And so this legally means that two people co-own the business together. That’s what it legally means. The problem is that you can have a verbal partnership. So, you actually calling someone a partner is evidence that y’all have a partnership, which then is potential evidence that they own the practice with you, and that there’s other rights and responsibilities that go with that. Partners also owe fiduciary responsibilities to each other. And so, you know if you are considered a partner you might have this higher level of responsibility to that person that you never really intended to be a, quote, “legal partner.” And so, you know, this is an example where it didn’t actually come back to bite our client, Dr. Tyson, but there are so many circumstances where you loosely use this word partner, where you could be creating risk to you and your practice without realizing it.
Brad: [00:28:15] Well, Michael, we’re almost near the end of this show. I’m assuming everyone, including me, would love to know what happened with Dr. Tyson and the practice and Ms. Fisher.
Michael: [00:28:30] Well, Dr. Tyson, I think for the first time in his life, chickened out and so, Ms. Fisher is currently still the practice manager. Unfortunately, that original staff of independent contractors are mostly gone now because she ran them off. So it, continues to be a source of conversation for us as we work through this. The good news is that Dr. Tyson has started switching people to W-2.
Brad: [00:29:05] Very smart. So yeah, best practice is, I think really is don’t misuse the term partner, vendor, affiliate, collaborator. Like, just understand that that, that means something. And if you have contracts, make sure all your contract agreements have clauses that are, that are very precise saying that the parties are independent contractors, they’re not partners, they’re not joint venturing, they’re not… You can’t even be an agent. But we got about 30 seconds, Michael. You have any final thoughts?
Michael: [00:29:30] Yeah. I mean, you know, I think your point is the primary point, which is be careful with these terms. The secondary point is, you know, when you bring your personal life into your business, it gets messy. And so no matter how well you document things, if there, if that person is your life partner at home you’re really potentially going to mess things up if things aren’t working on the business front or on the personal front.
Brad: [00:29:57] Well, audience members, we are back next Wednesday when our show continues when we bring on an M&A law firm called the Eskow Law Group, and then we’re going to look at M&A in the business of medicine today. Thanks again for joining us today. And remember, if you like this episode, please subscribe. Make sure to give us a five-star rating and share with your friends.
Michael: [00:31:29] You can also sign up for the ByrdAdatto newsletter by going to our website at byrdadatto.com.
Outro [00:31:35] ByrdAdatto is providing this podcast as a public service. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast does not constitute legal advice, nor does it establish an attorney-client relationship. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by ByrdAdatto. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please consult with an attorney on your legal issues.
