Perks like free procedures, injectables, and education loans are common in aesthetic practices, but even the most well-intentioned benefits can backfire. In this episode, hosts Brad and Michael share the story of a plastic surgeon whose generous staff perks spiraled into operational, financial, and compliance risks. When rebate paperwork went unsubmitted, tax liabilities appeared, and popular benefits were suspended, staff morale suffered, and the practice faced real consequences. Tune in to learn how to turn generous staff perks into structured, sustainable benefits that strengthen culture, reduce risk, and support long‑term practice growth.
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: [00:01] Welcome to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto, legal issues simplified through real client stories and real-world experiences, creating simplicity in three, two, one.
Brad: [00:13] Welcome back to the Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd.
Michael: [00:19] As business attorneys for health care practices, we meet a lot of interesting people and learn their amazing stories. This season’s theme, Brad, is The Business of Medicine Today. Brad, gone are the days of grandpa’s medical practice with paper charts and old-school treatments. This season, we’ll confront the business and healthcare issues faced with the modern medical practice.
Brad: [00:41] Very nice, Michael. Now, it’s been a hot minute, but we made it through the, entire holiday season. Did you have any great stories from Thanksgiving or Christmas Michael?
Michael: [00:51] Our holidays went by fast and relatively smoothly. We didn’t travel. importantly, I did not have coal in my stocking this year. That was a nice surprise.
Brad: [01:03] Yeah, I’m surprised, too.
Michael: [01:04] How about you?
Brad: [01:05] Lots of family, friends, food, probably too much booze, but, it was a good time, and like you say, it went by really fast. So why do you ask?
Michael: [01:14] Well, I was listening to our local sports radio station. We bring up from time to time in here, their stories, and, they were reviewing the most common injuries at Thanksgiving, according to emergency room doctors. So, let’s play a game, Brad. I’m going to see how smart you are, and just throw out a guess, and I’ll let you know if you made the top five or not, because I have the list secretly in front of me.
Brad: [01:44] I can see there’s a yellow sticky down there.
Michael: [01:46] Yes.
Brad: [01:47] Oh, wow!
Michael: [01:47] Old school. I had to find a pen. I haven’t used one of those in a long time. So, give me your first guess.
Brad: [01:53] I’m going to go off what my family went through, so Thanksgiving tackle football.
Michael: [01:59] Dad’s an orthopedic surgeon, makes total sense. Number two on the list orthopedic injury. All right, way to go.
Brad: [02:07] This also, which I can talk about later on, comes from a family story: fried turkey explosions.
Michael: [02:14] It didn’t directly make the list, so because, I want to, I’m not going to give you credit. There is, number three on the list is burns.
Brad: [02:31] Burns from fried turkey explosion?
Michael: [02:32] If you were somebody else, I probably would give you credit.
Brad: [02:34] Okay, fine.
Michael: [02:35] All right. What’s the next one?
Brad: [02:37] Cutting yourself from breaking glass while washing dishes?
Michael: [02:42] Did you get my list?
Brad: [02:43] No.
Michael: [02:44] That’s not direct, but lacerations is number one on the list. So, you’re probably, in reality, three for three so far.
Brad: [02:52] Okay.
Michael: [02:53] Very impressed.
Brad: [02:54] All right. Okay, again, every one of these, will be straight out of my family, falling off a ladder while putting up, decorations, mostly…it was Christmas decorations that had to go up right after Thanksgiving. So, it was actually on the Friday after, so I don’t know if that counts.
Michael: [03:15] Yeah. Now, well, I mean, you don’t get double credit. This would fall under the orthopedic injury classification, so, I’m not giving you credit twice. So you’ve missed one.
Brad: [03:26] Oh, shoot.
Michael: [03:26] What’s your next guess?
Brad: [03:28] Too much booze?
Michael: [03:30] Well, that could be because of all of the things on the list. But it’s not actually a direct one, I guess.
Brad: [03:39] Alcohol poisoning, is that what it says?
Michael: [03:42] No, no. The ones you missed were numbers four and five.
Brad: [03:45] Okay, what are they?
Michael: [03:45] Number four, head injuries.
Brad: [03:49] From falling off a ladder?
Michael: [03:51] Well, you said… I thought you said broken bone. No?
Brad: [03:53] Oh, okay. Yeah, true. Yeah.
Michael: [03:55] Okay. I mean, we can make them all fit. I mean, you could also have a head injury from too much booze.
Brad: [04:00] True.
Michael: [04:00] …And then number five on the list is probably not too surprising, gastrointestinal.
Brad: [04:07] Oh, yeah.
Michael: [04:08] Yeah, eating a little too much food.
Brad: [04:10] Eating too much food, yeah.
Michael: [04:10] Yeah. All right.
Brad: [04:12] You go to the emergency room for that?
Michael: [04:14] Well, I have.
Brad: [04:14] That would be like every day for me for a while.
Michael: [04:18] So I’m curious, have you or any friend or family had any ER trips over the years on Thanksgiving?
Brad: [04:25] We actually, believe it or not, actually never made it to the ER.
Michael: [04:29] Okay. Why, because you just don’t believe in it or because your dad’s a doctor?
Brad: [04:33] No, because in my family, when someone was injured, we were actually around a lot of doctors. We had an ENT doctor, we had an orthopedic surgeon, we had multiple trauma nurses, so we were always fine.
Michael: [04:47] Okay, yeah. Go back to the bedroom and –
Brad: [04:50] Get taped up. Get back in there.
Michael: [04:51] Exactly. cool. Well, Brad I do have a storyand it’s the backyard football story. So, my high school buddies, you’ve met, and know very well, two to three of the four of us, the fourth one, who you’ve never met before, who now is a doctor, coincidentally, we always played two-on-two football on Thanksgiving.
Brad: [05:15] Nice.
Michael: [05:15] And it was a tradition all through high school, and we played our freshman year of college. We kept the tradition going, and it worked really well until I threw too good of a pass.
Brad: [05:30] Oh, yeah, obviously.
Brad: [05:31] That must have been it.
Michael: [05:32] I was the quarterback. I threw a pass for a touchdown, and it was a beautiful pass. but my buddy broke his wrist on the play, and he had to go to the ER.
Brad: [05:42] Yeah.
Michael: [05:42] So that’s the closest I have to it, and, it was a friend, and I kind of caused it because I was the thrower.
Brad: [05:51] Yeah. I just think you caused it in general.
Michael: [05:53] Yeah. Well, I’m sure you do.
Brad: [05:56] Well, that was interesting. maybe we can jump into today’s story?
Michael: [06:00] Yeah, let’s do it.
Brad: [06:02] All right.
Michael: [06:02] Our story today starts with a single-owner plastic surgery practice in Texas…. we will call the owner Dr. Generous.
Brad: [06:11] With all that turkey talk, I’m surprised you didn’t go with some holiday name, but I’m assuming there’s a reason behind that has nothing to do with the holiday talk, so I will go with it cause maybe he’s a nice person.
Michael: [06:22] Yeah, I wasn’t creative today, so the story will reveal itself as to why we call himself Dr. Generous.
Brad: [06:27] Fair.
Michael: [06:28] The practice included both elective aesthetic surgery, had a surgery center, and a medical spa. And we will call the practice, keeping in line with our season’s theme, we’ll call it Modern Plastic Surgery.
Brad: [06:42] All right. Well, I mean, for those listening to us for the first time, this is a pretty normal setup for your typical plastic surgeon to have, all those different types of service lines, sometimes even separating. and you’re naming it Modern Plastic Surgery because it includes both maybe traditional surgical and separate medical spa services?
Michael: [07:01] In part, I mean, to your point, it has almost been normalized now. I mean, 10 years ago, we would call that modern. I called it Modern Plastic Surgery because Dr. Generous is a builder and a visionary, and he definitely had this vision of a modern practice for the patient experience and, no matter where they were in the journey, for care. And so, he also had a vision to create a great culture, to empower his employees to grow into all that they can be and to provide first-in-class benefits.
Brad: [07:38] Yeah, and audience members, in our previous shows, we’ve actually explored employee retention strategies. We’ve called it the carrot-and-stick approach. So, the stick focuses on barriers to leaving, such as restricted covenants or loss of bonuses, while carrot emphasizes a strong culture, flexible schedules, career advancement opportunities. For most of our clients, these effective strategies we discussed were making the workplace so appealing that an employee simply just didn’t want to leave, Michael. That means, you know, fostering an environment where people feel valued, supported, excited to go to work every day and ultimately, the retention isn’t about, a tactic. You know, it’s about really layering enough positive elements that the employees, wouldn’t consider leaving for other opportunities.
Michael: [08:22] Yeah, great point. Dr. Generous was fueled by seeing the growth of his team, and it felt to him like this was a way to build up his Texas location and ultimately be able to deploy these, you know, employees that had grown, you know, in their professional development so that they could be expanded into other markets for him.
Brad: [08:50] Interesting. So, what were some of these first-class, you know, benefits that he was providing?
Michael: [08:55] Some it was just kind of a really nice version of common benefits you’ll see in many practices. So, he had really robust health insurance. He did 401 matching and kind of, you know, again, robust on the matching side. And then he had a generous PTO policy. I mean, he was definitely kind of, you know, vibing, so to speak, with, you know, the work-life balance, talk that you hear these days.
Brad: [09:24] Yeah, and, you know, for audience members thinking about, what are other benefits out there, I mean, it could be everything from life and accidental death insurance, professional liability insurance, reimbursing someone for continuing their education, flexible spending accounts, student loan repayments, and of course, a really robust wellness programs.
Michael: [09:43] Yeah.
Brad: [09:44] Were there other benefits, Michael?
Michael: [09:46] Yeah, a few, for sure. And then there’s a couple of others that are kind of interesting. One that you somewhat touched on, what you called student loan repayments. A little bit different than that, but this one actually was not the subject of the problem that evolved that we’ll spend most of our time talking about.
Brad: [10:05] Oh, wait, there’s a problem coming?
Michael: [10:07] Yeah, Brad. Not how that usually happens.
Brad: [10:10] Oh, interesting. I didn’t know if you were spoiling it for the audience or not.
Michael: [10:13] No, I think that they probably expect it at this point.
Brad: [10:16] Okay, I didn’t.
Michael: [10:17] Yeah.
Brad: [10:17] Okay.
Michael: [10:18] So Dr. Generous, one of the things he would do is he would loan money to his staff to help them advance in their degrees. And so between the medical spa and the surgical practice, he had a ton of providers, and he loaned money for multiple RNs to become nurse practitioners and supported a couple of, medical assistants to, become aestheticians.
Brad: [10:41] Nice. You know, I’ll say this, in some medical practices, financial support for their staff education does occasionally occur, but it’s typically like one-off gestures rather than a formalized program. Leaders may choose to invest in individual growth when they see a strong potential or a clear benefit to their practice, such as what you just described, you know, having those RNs become NPs or MAs becoming aestheticians. I mean, all really great ways, and as you can imagine, now you’re developing strong employees, and then more importantly, a stronger team, and then creating loyalty. However, these arrangements usually are discretionary, and they’re really based on those personal relationships, with the management team, with the owners, and they don’t always just make it, like, a standard benefit, Michael.
Michael: [11:28] Yeah. I mean, Dr. Generous fell somewhere in between.
Brad: [11:31] Okay.
Michael: [11:31] It wasn’t one-off. It was definitely a part of the culture and common, but he didn’t have a formal policy allowing anyone to do it. It was definitely encouraged, and other senior leadership encouraged it, and they just really wanted to support the growth educationally of the different providers.
Brad: [11:53] Okay. Sounds about right. One thing you mentioned, earlier, and important to understand, is the fact you said, quote-unquote, “loaned money to the employees to advance their education.” Why did he do it this way, and what was the risk?
Michael: [12:06] Yeah, that’s an important question. The strategy to loan the money rather than just pay for it is that he wanted the, employees to have skin in the game. So he would support them in, you know, advancing or loaning these monies, but wanted the employees to be motivated to see their education through. And, so the risk is kind of tricky. I mean, loaning money to an employee is a slippery slope.
Brad: [12:35] Absolutely.
Michael: [12:36] So no matter how you document the loan, you have a collision of traditional contract laws for loaning money kind of colliding with employment laws.
Brad: [12:47] Yeah, it gets ugly fast. So why don’t you go deeper into that?
Michael: [12:50] Yeah, so, you know, on the employee side, there’s payday laws that limit your ability to do things you might otherwise do, like offset paychecks or bonuses against the loan if they were to leave.
Brad: [13:01] Mm-hmm.
Michael: [13:02] So you owe them a, you know, a final bonus, and they leave, but they owe you money. You know, payday laws get in the way of, you know, being able to do that, oftentimes. And then, you know, kind of as importantly, when you have a termination event, it gets messy cause, you know, you’re breaking up, and, you know, there’s definitely risk that goes with a breakup, In any state, in some states more so than others. but then you also have this idea that employee probably has to pay the loan back at that moment. And so, it just gets, it gets difficult to, you know, to navigate. And then finally, I mean, the employees are getting loaned money to further their education, oftentimes because they don’t have the resources themselves to do it. And so, you know, things that a bank might do, like getting security for the loan, isn’t really in the cards when you are doing this to support an employee. And so, you know, their ability to pay back that loan, if they’re to leave, is in doubt. I mean, we’ve, you know, had a couple of occasions where clients were, you know kind of chasing, employees that just flat out didn’t have the, the means to pay it back. Now, not Dr. Generous, I’m talking, different employees.
Brad: [14:25] Yeah. Because you alluded to something earlier, saying that this was not the real problem.
Michael: [14:30] Yes.
Brad: [14:31] So what was the other benefit you also mentioned?
Michael: [14:33] You want to hear the problem.
Brad: [14:35] Maybe.
Michael: [14:36] Okay.
Brad: [14:36] If this is it, I don’t know. There could be less.
Michael: [14:38] It’s not, not yet.
Brad: [14:39] Yeah.
Michael: [14:40] It’s still… We’re still roses right now.
Brad: [14:41] Okay, great.
Michael: [14:42] So one of his other benefits is that he allowed employees to receive free injectables and almost free surgical services at the practice.
Brad: [14:54] Michael, you said the word injectables. That’s a vocabulary that some people might not know, and for those who don’t know, injectables refers to non-surgical cosmetic treatments administered through injections, such as Botox, dermal fillers, and other products. Many plastic surgery and medical practices offering these complimentary or heavily discounted injectables, and surgical services staff is actually more common than people probably think they are. But obviously, this goes back to what we’ve been talking about the whole time. This approach obviously has multiple purposes. One, if it allows employees who experience their procedure firsthand, which then allows, allows them to talk to a patient about what their experience was when they were receiving whatever that treatment was. And obviously, again, going back to loyalty, it does foster loyalty by bringing unique perks, that, that this practice can provide, that probably other practices or other medical clinics don’t.
Michael: [15:46] Yeah. and, you know, kind of talking about the surgical, free surgery first, because Modern Plastic Surgery had its own surgical suites, Dr. Generous was able to not just waive, you know, his surgeon’s fee, but he was also able to waive the facility fee that goes with the surgery. So, the only thing the employee had to pay was for the anesthesia.
Brad: [16:09] Incredible, incredible benefit, but I feel like maybe we’re getting towards that problem. So, did we have a botched situation, where one of the employees, had a bad surgical outcome?
Michael: [16:21] That’s the fear, but actually, no. I mean, he, Dr. Generous has not had any issues over the years with the free surgical cases. The problem actually arose from the free injectables.
Brad: [16:33] Okay, I can see why. The cost of injectables is typically close to half, if not more than the whole cost of the treatment.
Michael: [16:40] Yes, true. Dr. Generous did have a workaround that was going to make that not an out-of-pocket expense for the practice. So, the companies who sell the product will offer rebates, for the use of the product, you know, for your employees and kind of other sample-type scenarios. And so, you know, he had this workaround where the, the company was basically, in a sense, giving free product, although it was more of a, a rebate or refund once it was used for that purpose.
Brad: [17:15] Yeah, and audience members, this can get complicated. We can get super deep into analyzing the use of free products from these companies, but hopefully we’re not doing that.
Michael: [17:24] No, no, no. We’re going to keep it focused just on the kind of the, the surface level, cause that’s where the problem kind of arose. So, for purposes of the story, it really centers around this arrangement he had, you know, where he was able to get these refunds and rebates, and what went wrong. So, when the employees used the product, they would submit some paperwork to the company, the practice would and receive a credit or a refund, you know, for that amount of the product. So, it was at a net zero for the practice.
Brad: [17:59] Okay.
Michael: [18:00] This worked great-
Brad: [18:01] Yeah
Michael: [18:01] …Until it didn’t.
Brad: [18:02] Oh. This is the problem?
Michael: [18:04] Yeah. Dr. Generous learned that about two years prior, that the staff had stopped submitting this paperwork to get the refunds or the rebates. And, and of course, you know, with the free, you know, product, the staff was using this stuff like crazy. The practice had been paying for all of it. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of product.
Brad: [18:31] Wow, wow!
Michael: [18:32] Yeah.
Brad: [18:33] I’m guessing Dr. Generous, even though it’s his name, has some limits to his generosity.
Michael: [18:38] Yes, we did tap into that line, Brad. This had crossed the line of what he was willing to do from a generosity perspective. So as soon as he figured it out, he immediately froze the ability of the team to use the free product until he could sort out the situation. And you might imagine what the reaction was. It would be like, imagine if for two years you had free Titos and then I just cut it off.
Brad: [19:07] That would be awful.
Michael: [19:08] Yes.
Brad: [19:08] And you should never say that out loud again.
Michael: [19:10] Okay.
Brad: [19:11] It does sound like he had kind of an explosive fried turkey situation here, Michael.
Michael: [19:15] Oh, way to bring back in our, our holiday talk.
Brad: [19:18] I’ll tell you what, let’s go to break and talk about these legal considerations, and even talk a little about what happened with Dr. Generous and the free Botox mayhem.
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Brad: [20:03] Welcome back to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto, with my co-host, Michael Byrd. Now, Michael, for those that don’t know, this season our theme is The Practice of Medicine Today, and boy, you just dropped a story on us that the whole kind of concept of, no good deed goes unpunished.
Michael: [20:19] Yeah, no doubt. So, we’ve been talking about Modern Plastic Surgery. Dr. Generous is the owner, and really the focus of the story is, some of the benefits that he had, in particular, the benefit of offering free medical services for his staff. And, so they got free surgical services, not really a problem. Also had a program where they were able to get free injectables, and that was kind of built on the premise that they were able to get rebates or refunds from the company so that it didn’t actually cost the practice anything. What we bumped into was an operational kind of, problem, in the sense that they weren’t actually submitting the paperwork for two years, and so where we left off was the realization that, that the practice had dropped a couple hundred thousand dollars’ worth of, of money on product for their employees, and, using the analogy, they had been cut off from their free Titos.
Brad: [21:21] Yeah, that’s terrible. So, let’s get back to the story. You know, you had a good recap there, but what are the risks for free injectable benefits that were offered, by Dr. Generous?
Michael: [21:32] Yeah, well, so we talked about at the beginning of the story, kind of his vision. he’s a builder, he’s scaling. Well, you know, we know from just experience with our clients a- and with us, that when you scale, that puts stress on your processes, cause things are changing. It puts stress on people’s jobs, and so cracks form during that kind of season of growth. And, so, you know, when you have a benefit like this that’s dependent on a process to being followed, you know, obviously, you, this is kind of a worst-case scenario in many ways because, you, have two years, because they don’t even realize it, because they’re blowing and going so fast that it doesn’t… You know, it takes them a while to capture it. And, so then you kind of pair that with the reaction of the employees. So, you, have this strategy of having first-in-class benefits, and one that’s obviously super popular, and then you take that away.
Brad: [22:42] Yeah.
Michael: [22:42] And, so, you know, there was a lot of, mayhem at that point, too, cause they’re not aware about the whole refund thing, right? I mean, they’re, just expecting this free product.
Brad: [22:58] Yeah, I completely agree, and I think you, you nailed it, as it relates to when you’re scaling, there’s things like this happen, and there’s room for a lot of inconsistencies, when there is informal arrangements like this. Without certain defined policies, these perks just start blurring between the professional boundaries, and the complications of, as you just kind of nailed, the inventory management that, the organization needed to really think about. And, then, of course, you said it more than once with your Titos line, but once the staff does become accustomed to receiving these high-value services at little, in this case, no cost, removing it or pausing it or stopping it altogether, these benefits, actually feels like a loss of compensation to the staff.
Michael: [23:44] Well, if this wasn’t bad enough, you know, out of pocket a bunch of money, angry staff, you know, the CPA kind of, you know, put the final, you know, gasoline on the fire.
Brad: [23:56] Oh, good.
Michael: [23:56] When the CPA raised that the fact that was not a zero-sum game, because they were getting reimbursed for it, and so the employees were just receiving this product worth, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, that should have been treated as income to the employees. Yeah, and so all of a sudden, you know, the CPA’s raising his hand, saying: “Whoa, you know, we’ve got tax returns that have been filed, we’ve got paychecks that have been paid, and we have a massive tax risk that’s been created,” and, you know, I’m not a tax attorney, you’re not a tax attorney, but I definitely, could know enough to know that, that was not good.
Brad: [24:43] Yeah, taxable income to the staff that thought it was free, yeah, that’s, that’s going to really crush any staff goodwill that was already built. I mean, you kind of said it with the gasoline on the fire part, but which is likely, you know, they’re at the cliff edge already, and the freezing of the benefits, all this coming together is probably not a good thing right now.
Michael: [25:03] Yeah, for sure. And I want to talk- I do want to touch on the free surgery, even though it wasn’t an issue here. So, Brad, why don’t you kind of talk a little bit about the risks associated with giving free surgery?
Brad: [25:16] Yeah, I mean, it seems like a very generous perk. Obviously, you’re offering these things to your staff, but obviously there are lots of significant risks. First, standard of care obligation. I mean, just because they’re an employee doesn’t change what you’re doing. So, the employee receives surgery, must be treated as the same, you know, rigor and documentation as any patient, to avoid standard care questions or malpractice questions. So, clearing the patient, making sure they’re a good candidate for the services, all the same standard things that you would typically do for any patient that walks through your front door. And then, you know, they’re second, there’s probably some boundaries that, you know, you have to look at. Were there clear limits set for these staff? May they request multiple procedures? If they kept getting more and more surgeries, that could put a strain on you. And then obviously, there’s ethical concerns, meaning that, like, you have to be very careful and conscious of now you have employees who have, employment law issues, but now you have HIPAA coming in, where privacy standards that you have to kind of follow.
Brad: [26:04] And then there’s a whole bunch of questions as it relates to the employment side. If it’s, you know, if something, if a complication happens, do they feel pressured to return to work permanently? Or worse, do they turn against the practice, alleging negligence or other concerns as it relates to the surgery? In your case, you said this didn’t happen. So, these are just some of the lines where you’re taking professionalism and dealing with, employees and privacy, and all that becomes blurred. and it can really lead to some uncomfortable dynamics. To mitigate these risks, obviously, we kind of started talking about this earlier, but the practice probably should have some really clear documentation on all the care provided, so they’re separating on the employment side versus the patient side.
Michael: [26:59] From a risk perspective, you can’t escape this truth. We’ve talked about it a bunch. The two biggest risks to your practice are your patients and your employees, and this has just become the same person.
Brad: [27:09] Yeah.
Michael: [27:10] And so you can just see how messy it can get, yet it happens in almost every practice. and for the most part, you know, you don’t see a lot of problems that arise from it. but I also don’t think practices appreciate the degree of risk they’re carrying.
Brad: [27:30] Yeah, and we definitely have seen situations where employees took advantage of it, had some surgical, and other free stuff, and then soon as they’re healed up, left to go to somewhere else to where they get paid more but they were using the benefits of the surgeries, and so it can be discouraging in some practices. But, Michael, you know, we’ve been talking all around about what happened to Dr. Generous and his, I guess, super generous benefits.
Michael: [27:55] Yeah. Dr. Generous had to end up freezing permanently, the free injectable benefit, because that tax issue, was a mess. I mean, they’re actually still sorting it out and this is well over a year since the event happened. He does hope to reinstitute it in the future, but he’s not been able to do so. Also, he has had several employees leave over the loss of benefit. Now, no one actually said, “I’m leaving because I don’t get free Botox,” but it was like this thread got pulled when you took that away. And so all of a sudden, you can kind of look from that moment forward and see kind of the different reasons that people ended up leaving, and, and you can connect that, having, you know, kind of that first impact of, you know, the opening their eyes and thinking, you know, what else might they want to do.
Brad: [28:57] Great takeaway. I mean, obviously, you nailed it. Bottom line is, it can be a very powerful tool to have these types of benefits, but document, document, document, be consistent, be proactive with these communications with the staff, setting those boundaries, and that way, as you grow, you already have it in spot. And I know we got about 30 seconds left. Michael, any final thoughts?
Michael: [29:17] Yeah, I would say this: you’ve said document and policies, and that’s true, but you also have to recognize and have a plan of how you are going to carry out that operationally, especially if you’re growing, and you’ve got that extra stress. But it’s one thing to have the form, but how are you in substance going to carry it out?
Brad: [29:39] Perfect. Well, audience members, we’re back next Wednesday, when we continue on this journey of, The Business of Medicine Today, where we discuss: Can patients record audio and video during a consultation?
Brad: [29:55] Thanks again for joining us today, and remember, if you liked this episode, please subscribe, make sure to give us a five-star rating, and share with your friends.
Michael: [29:59] You can also sign up for the ByrdAdatto newsletter by going to our website at byrdadatto.com
Outro: [30:06] 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.
