Questions for Dr. Stern
About Your Urgent Care Center
39. Do you have any experience in dealing with Urgent Cares who work under the license of hospitals? (The hospital system considers the Urgent Cares to be a department under their auspices.) Do they also have to bill with office codes? And my final question.. (I know I am am pushing it.) Our physicians are presently independent contractors. My partner has concerns that they should be employees. He is worried about their lack of disabilty coverage and possible IRS consequences.. Can you offer an opinion?
A. Yes.
B. Yes. You may qualify to use facility codes. See this article.
C. This is really a tax (i.e., accounting) issue. There are multiple rules that determine if an employee is an independent contractor or an employee. No single rule actually governs this issue. The rules (I think there are over 20) include: uses own equipment, sets own hours, etc. My understanding is that there have been more professionals suing and winning over this issue in the past few years. In these cases the employer pays all back taxes, plus interest and penalties. Also, the issue of benefits comes into play when you are trying to attract qualified docs.
