Complex laws around healthcare employees get more complicated

Employers have seen an enormous number of changes recently to various rules about how they manage their employee base. This includes a notice of proposed rulemaking by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in late 2023, sweeping memoranda from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and final rules from the NLRB on joint employment. All of this is deeply complicated for employers of all types, but in the healthcare world, it can be particularly cumbersome to try to mesh competing agency expectations and demands—from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to the NLRB.

Health care not immune

These issues are further exacerbated by the fact that healthcare employment doesn’t follow the traditional manufacturing industry structure the Board uses when crafting its directives.

Health care is a complex and sometimes chaotic mix of employees, independent contractors, and persons who—because of their licensure and rules of ethics—must exercise substantial independent judgment, particularly in relation to medical decisions, as well as have multiple joint programs, practices, leased employees, and groups that might simply rent space.

Health care is widely considered to be the most highly regulated industry in the United States, and the employment realm is no different.

FTC