What You Need To Know About Employment Law For Dental Practices  

When you have your own dental practice, you will have various agreements with your employees. You will hire many of your choices, such as the front office staff.

You will also hire hygienists and associate dentists through an employee agreement. You must be sure your employment agreement is lawful and has provisions safeguarding you and your employee. Before you make dental employees sign on the dotted line, click here to learn more about employment law for dental practices. 

What you need to know about employment law for dental practices

When you hire an employee in your dental practice, you must enter into an employment agreement t. These agreements usually contain employment conditions, hours, duties, salary, etc. In brief, you and your employee must mutually settle on the job’s condition. The agreements can be in written, oral, or implied form.

Types of employment agreements

• At-will contracts

In the United States, most employees have at-will contracts with their employers.  The agreement means that the employer can terminate their employees without giving any warnings or explanations until the dismissals do not violate any discrimination laws. But your employees can even quit whenever they want under this agreement.

Almost every state follows this type of agreement in many professions, but skilled labor and education have unions that dictate their employment terms and offer protection from being terminated. You may have some dental practitioners and special staff with written contracts, but most dental practice employees are categorized as at-will.

• Oral contracts

It is one of the most informal agreements one can have between the employer and the employee. Both of them simply have to agree to terms without any documentation. They have to trust each other to follow their commitments. Usually, this type of agreement is tough to implement because there are no written records or proof of the agreement. The only exception could be a third-party witness. 

• Written contracts

Dental practices often have written contracts for dentists and associate doctors. Most of them are viewed as independent contractors, and at-will contracts are inappropriate for their positions. 

A written contract in the dental industry includes the agreement’s details to prove that it is lawful and binding by both employer and the employee. As an employer, you will always need to possess a non-compete clause so the employee leaving your employ cannot shift to a competitor and bring along patients with them. The practitioner will want their duties, benefits, and salary to be spelled out in detail to clarify misunderstandings.