Welcome to a special edition of our Healthcare Snapshot – this time with a Florida focus. We’re taking a deeper dive and examining how the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is focusing on whether home healthcare employees are being misclassified as independent contractors, an issue that can be particularly challenging in Florida due to our state’s legal quirks.
Recent Scrutiny and Florida Headlines
Have you read or heard about this ramped-up enforcement activity recently? If so, you probably read our Insight about a purported home health contractor whom a Florida federal court determined was actually an employee. If you did, you saw that the “economic realities” test, which is used to determine if a worker is a contractor or an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), is a complex analysis that involves weighing several different factors. To say the least, that analysis makes legal outcomes notoriously hard to predict.
Florida employers who are relying on the State’s nurse registry statute, or are counting on the position that the use of independent contractors is a “standard practice” in home health or other segments of the industry, could be in for a rude awakening. You may be shocked to learn that these justifications will not hold water before the DOL or under federal law in general.
What Is *Your* Company Doing?
It is a poorly kept secret that many home health agencies, nurse registries, and other healthcare providers in Florida often use “independent...
A Raleigh professor has agreed to pay $152,500 to resolve allegedly false national science grant claims. According to the Department of Justice of ENC, Dr. Michael Harrington and his company, Geno...