福利姬视频

[00:00:00] Wright: Whether you are a practice owner or an associate, it's important to know the legal issues relevant to you. Hello, hello everyone! I'm Dr. ArNelle Wright.  

[00:00:10] Ioannidou: And I'm Dr. Effie Ioannidou. Today we are talking about A Dentist Guide to the Law. This is part two, by the way, because yes, it's really very important. It's really important to understand what this means for all of us and what we need to know on both sides of the contract.

[00:00:32] Announcer: From the American Dental Association, this is Dental Sound Bites created for dentists by dentists. Ready? Let's dive right into real talk on dentistry's daily wins and sticky situations. 

[00:00:48] Wright: Hello, hello! So last season, our episode, A Dentist Guide to the Law really struck a chord with listeners.

[00:00:55] Ioannidou: Hello everybody. That's exactly right, as we discussed, this topic sparked so much interest and even more questions for our listeners. So, I think this is the time that we need to revisit and reexamine and discuss a little bit more about new legal topics that a lot of people wanted to.

[00:01:16] Wright: We're going to be focusing on employment law today, and discrimination and harassment, which are really, really important, both for associate dentists and practice owners. Our first guest is 福利姬视频legal counsel, Michael Kim. Hi Michael.  

[00:01:33] Kim: Hi.  

[00:01:34] Ioannidou: Hello. Hello.  

[00:01:35] Kim: Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.  

[00:01:37] Ioannidou: That's so nice that we have you here. So yeah. So, it's great that you join us and I think we are, we really are ready to pick your legal brain. We need the legal brain. 

[00:01:50] Wright: Yes. Give us all the nuggets.  

[00:01:52] Ioannidou: Yeah, yeah, but first, tell us a little bit about yourself, your work and how you collaborate and how you work at the ADA. 

[00:02:01] Kim: Yeah, so I'm an Associate General Counsel here at the 福利姬视频and my day-to-day focus is the review and negotiation of contracts for the ADA's internal business partners. A lot of my work involves the review of procurement contracts for our internal business teams, but I also do support the Practice Institute. It provides some general governance support for the organization as a whole. Before I joined the ADA, though, I worked in law firms, fortune 500 legal departments, and even some legal consulting. 

But, a through line or a theme in my career has been kind of a focus on contracts, so hopefully I can be of  interest and use today.  

[00:02:38] Ioannidou: Oh, for sure.

[00:02:40] Wright: There's so much to talk about when it comes to contracts. So, as a former associate, like recently former associate, I kind of have so many questions that are already swirling around in my head that I'm sure our listeners would want to hear from. But before we dive into all of my questions, why don't we start with hiring and getting hired? What's the most important thing for us to zero in on and tell us why?

[00:03:07] Kim: Yeah. Well first off, I wouldn't be a lawyer if I didn't do any housekeeping and disclaimers here, so鈥�

[00:03:14] Wright: oh, right ahead. Do it.  

[00:03:16] Kim: Today the information I'm sharing, you know, it's not intended to be legal advice and shouldn't be substituted for anyone listening to find their own consultations and advice with attorneys of their jurisdiction. Every situation's different and you know, I'm going to be speaking at a high level today, but back to your question.

I think before we even get to employment contracts, we need to think about due diligence and that's D-U-E diligence, right? Uh, people, lawyers like to throw that around, but due diligence is simply doing your homework, right? Whether you're on the practice owner side or a prospective associate, you really want to figure out what you're getting into before you even look at a legal document and some of this is common sense. I'm sure you're going to go onto Google and put in the practice name. You want to go to the business, Better Business Bureau, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, all those kinds of fun social media platforms. 

But there are some specific resources in the healthcare industry as well, for instance, the Health and Human Services Department maintains a list of excluded individuals and entities and those are folks that have engaged in some sort of bad behavior over the years that are listed on the Inspector General site there too. So look at those social media places, but also look at some federally available resources. Some state and dental associations, they might kind of contain some additional nuggets before you enter into any sort of employment situation.

[00:04:42] Wright: When you're doing your homework and your due diligence. Can you like zero in or double hit on like what exactly we are looking for? Is it not, is it reputation?  

[00:04:53] Ioannidou: That's exactly what I was planning to ask. Yeah.  

[00:04:56] Wright: Please! So, is it the reputation? Is it, you know, I guess I understand with Better Business Bureau, right? But what, what else could we be looking for, because oftentimes we don't really know what questions to ask or what even we're trying to research. 

[00:05:12] Kim: Yeah. You know, that's a great question and, you know, taking my legal head off and just putting on someone that's been an employee at many different organizations over the years too, right? Just kind of figuring out whether it's a place that you want to spend your career, where you want to have coworkers that you respect and admire and want to work with day in and day out. 

On the legal practice owner side, obviously you want to vet the credentials and education and licensing and all those kinds of boxes that you want to check off before bringing someone into your practice as well. So again, these I think are just kind of table stakes before you even get into actual employment, nitty gritty discussions. 

[00:05:55] Ioannidou: And after you do all these due diligence and you look at the, you know, the online resources, federal or not federal, then you enter the contract stage, right? So, share some wisdom here. So, what do we need to know? What are the tips that we need to know if we want to navigate this process in a smart way? And are there any bullet points that have to be, are more important than others when a contract is drafted?  

[00:06:25] Kim: Absolutely. I think, though I want to take a step back and just lead off with kind of an overarching theme, is that you should definitely get it in writing, right? So, I have some young kids and they don't really know what I do for my job. They don't know what a contracts attorney is, but the easy way to explain it to them is, my job is to write down promises, right? And you want to get all those promises written down. If folks break their promises, that's when you bring in the litigators, but I'm here to write down the promises.  

[00:06:55] Wright: I love that. 

[00:06:55] Kim: And some of those promises will be the terms of the employment. Will be, all sorts of different kind of issues and topics that you'll raise, but again, that overarching theme is to get it in writing because most or nearly every employment contract will contain a clause that says if it's not written in this contract, it's not going to be enforceable, and courts will look at it the same way as well. So even if you had a handshake deal over dinner one day about a certain term or agreement, unless it's written in that agreement, you're not going to be able to enforce that in court if a dispute ever arises and to your point, on some of those issues that you do want to kind of address specifically in the contract.

[00:07:37] Wright: Oh yeah. 

[00:07:37] Kim: There'll be items along compensation. We can dive into that later. Your actual obligations and duties as an associate and you know, that again, cuts both ways. As a practice owner, you want to know what you're getting out of a hard day's work for your associate. As an associate, you want to know what you're going to bring to the table day in and day out and what you're expected to do. That'll kind of go into the contract and then again, all the fun kind of spoiler plate types of stuff too that makes that employment agreement what it is. And that'll encompass everything from specific kind of liabilities and legal things that that might arise.

[00:08:14] Ioannidou: You know, a lot of people enter an associate job thinking that or being promised a partnership, right? So is it something, as you said, every promise, it's something to be, it doesn't exist unless it's in writing, so yeah, future prospects and plans, if they exist, should be part of the contract from the beginning, right?  

[00:08:41] Kim: Yes. You know, to the extent that is a condition of employment and has been negotiated on the front end and that both parties agree to that, okay? You can get that in writing, whether it's some sort of timetable or benchmarks to hit on the road to partnership, that sort of thing. Oh, that's a good point. Those are all items that you can incorporate in there because again if it's not documented within the agreement itself and you're just relying on promises and commitments that are in that document and a court is likely not going to enforce that. 

[00:09:15] Ioannidou: Yeah.  

[00:09:15] Wright: I want to go back to something you talked about. We'll talk about compensation guidelines in a moment, but I was going to say, how often are their like, do disputes really arise because the person, whoever presents the contracts really writes a contract that's going to be most beneficial to them on their side and so, I mean, the person who is receiving the contract, I mean, you can have some negotiations, but. I mean, how far are you really going to be able to push the envelope? Like do disputes arise a lot?  

[00:09:45] Kim: That is a great question. Okay. I am not an employment attorney, but,  

[00:09:49] Wright: okay, okay.

[00:09:50] Kim: You know, I think you raise a good point about that disparity of bargaining power, right? Like and, you know, I get this every day. If it's a business term, right? You, you'd want to really go into that with your eyes wide open and really think about all the terms that are being discussed, but again, going back to my initial point too, having a lawyer that is familiar in your jurisdiction on maybe what is acceptable on those legal specific issues is definitely a good ally to have in your corner as you're going into any sort of employment arrangement.  

[00:10:25] Wright: Well, let's talk about compensation, shall we?  

[00:10:27] Ioannidou: Oh, I love it. Yeah, let's do it.  

[00:10:30] Wright: So, okay. I am a practice owner now and for the beginning, for the whole, I guess eight years, first eight years of my career as a dentist, I was an associate, right? So clear compensation guidelines has always been, I think that's the thing that everyone is looking for. Like what? How am I going to get paid? You know? We want to know about compensation, so can you talk to us about employment classification and compensation in contracts. Like anything that you can share for our listeners that are going to go through this process now, if they're renegotiating their compensation. Because with what I've seen over, like my span of the career of my time as an associate, there are some very creative ways that you can go about negotiating your compensation. Guidelines and employment and all of that, so anything that you can tell us from your vantage point that would be beneficial is great.  

[00:11:29] Kim: Yeah. Uh, you raised a couple different questions there too.  

[00:11:32] Wright: I know.  

[00:11:32] Kim: I'm going to go and kind of, I'm going to start with that employment classification piece because that is very important and you did mention that in your question. Okay, so when we talk about employment classification, we're talking about the IRS rules between an employee. An independent contractor, right? So in most cases with an associate working in a dental practice, they're likely to be classified as an employee. If it truly is the kind of hope of the parties to have an independent contractor relationship. That is where kind of the importance of that contract comes back in because the contract will definitely kind of define what you can and can't do. What you should and shouldn't do in order to maintain your classification as an independent contractor versus an employee.

There's a kind of a multi-part test that that is used to kind of determine whether there's an employee relationship or an independent contractor relationship, and, and they'll be looking at, firstly kind of behavioral control, right? Does the employer, the workplace, kind of tell you when and where to work or give you specific instructions on how you kind of proceed in your day-to-day work? That's kind of one. Secondly would be financial control. Does the employer reimburse for expenses, or does the independent contractor kind of take the risk of loss and profit and that sort of thing as well? 

And then third would be like the actual kind of relationship, which is kind of more like, for instance, would the associate be receiving benefits or is it kind of permanent or for a shorter term. So all these kinds of things kind of mix together will help determine whether there is an actual employee employer relationship versus an independent contract relationship. 

[00:13:15] Wright: Gotcha.  

[00:13:15] Kim: So I, I'll kind of close that classification topic and move on to compensation because a, as you mentioned, there are kind of any number of variations on, on how to approach compensation, right? Kind of that straight salary approach, right? Which most people are familiar with in their day-to-day working lives. Good parts is that it's structured and predictable and then you know what's going to come at, you know, every other week or monthly or whatever the case may be. But kind of the flip side to that, it would be kind of the expectation or demand if a practice is extra busy, right? Or taking on more patients than you initially kind of anticipated. 

So that's kind of the pros and cons of the salary model.  

[00:14:01] Wright: Yeah

[00:14:01] Kim: On the, on the flip side, kind of the other popular one that you'll see would be kind of that percentage of production type of thing that meant to kind of reward high effort, high volume getting a lot of work done, but again, there might be negatives related to the uncertainty or complexity of how those compensation numbers are derived as well too. So, these are all kind of business decisions that you'll kind of have to go into as a practice owner. And if you are a prospective associate, really think about what matters most to you on how you get paid, whether it's that predictability or potential upside, but, you know, I, I'd be remiss not to mention on the compensation topic that discussion about duties and obligations, right? Because the two should be linked, right? If you, they definitely do, right? Because if there are things, for instance, if you are getting a percentage of production, you know, if you go under that model, then you know, are you still expected to do administrative tasks or helping out with collections or all those things that aren't directly revenue generating?

Putting a patient in the chair and collecting fees that way. So again, you want to spell all these kinds of things out within that employment agreement, making sure that both sides know what they're getting into and try to eliminate some of that ambiguity so you don't run into a dispute down the line. 

[00:15:26] Ioannidou: I was thinking, and as you speak, I think, you know how many things as you said that due diligence, right? How many things you need to know about the practice before, for example, you make a decision like this or you negotiate in this direction because you might want to take the risk, you know avoiding a predictable salary model and going to a more risky collection model, but then you also need to know the financial and patient capacity of the practice, right? So are you shooting yourself on the foot if you propose like something like this? Or the practice has the volume and the potential to really support a model like that. So it's a very complicated decision and negotiation to make.  

[00:16:11] Kim: Yeah, absolutely and these are issues that are limited to the dental practice, right? You know, in the tech world, do you want to go work for a big giant like Microsoft or do you want to kind of take a risk on that high flying startup that has huge potential but you know, also has higher risk? So I, I think it's definitely something to consider.  

[00:16:30] Ioannidou: Yeah and you know, as we talk about negotiation and how you do that, it's important to think about what other things that need to be included in the contract, right? In terms of terms that can maybe, that need to be reevaluated or reassessed at certain point. I mean, the contract is complicated, it's not an easy. It's not an easy document, right?

[00:17:01] Wright: Very complicated.  

[00:17:02] Ioannidou: It's not an easy document. So what do you, what do you think about that? Like, what are the other important items to be included?  

[00:17:09] Kim: Yeah. You know, I think I, when you talk about, you know, besides compensation and duties, the other kind of big one that jumps to mind in my mind is kind of restrictive covenants. So that's kind of the legal term for things like non-competes and non-solicitation and that sort of thing as well. 

[00:17:24] Ioannidou: Yes

[00:17:25] Kim: Employment contract will kind of discuss and address everything that happens while you're working there. That restrictive covenant is when you leave, right? What's going to happen there? 

In a non-competition situation, are you prohibited from working in the same geographic area in a particular specialty, whatever the case may be there, in a non-solicitation situation, that clause kind of gets at the concept of being able to poach clients. For instance, or even other employees, whether they're licensed dentists or support staff or whatever the case may be. 

So these types of restrictive covenants are another kind of area for hot negotiation and kind of complicating things is that every jurisdiction treats restrictive covenants very differently. There's actually high profile litigation at the federal level going on right now, kind of. The legality of restricted covenants as a whole, but as that's kind of being litigated and up in the air, there are very specific state to state variations on the enforceability of restrictive covenants. 

Some states say, no way, under no circumstances. It might be in the agreement, but we're never going to enforce it. On the other hand, you know, you might find some states that say if it's written in the contract and you agree to this restriction, then you're going to have to live with it, right? So again, kind of harping back on the original theme, it's very important to find attorney in your jurisdiction that really understands these restrictive covenant issues in particular place that you're looking to find a practice.  

[00:18:56] Ioannidou: We will be right back.  

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[00:19:42] Wright: Welcome back to Dental Sound Bites. We're going to be focusing on employment law today and discrimination and harassment with Michael Kim. You talked about having like an attorney in your back pocket, like the cost of securing an attorney for a new graduate, right? It can be a little bit scary, especially if you don't have all of the resources to have someone like really read your contracts. 

Like when I paid my attorneys for my transition, I honestly, that was some of the best money that I paid. And when I look back in retrospect at times where I had a contract and I didn't have an attorney, I had like mentors, colleagues, people advising me and I learned about all of the creativity and I had, you know, a friend who was an attorney who just kind of skimmed through it. You know what I mean? But they didn't really comb through it like someone that I had on retainer. Did you know what I mean? Like, could it be something like that? I don't know. I'm asking a million in one questions, but  

[00:20:42] Ioannidou: Yeah. No, I don't know either. 

[00:20:43] Kim: Yeah. You know, in my day-to-day job, I don't review employment agreements all the time and as someone at the ADA, I don't want to take sides between being on the practice side or the associate side, obviously as well. But kind of back to your original point, you know, I think a good takeaway is that a legal review of a contract is relatively cheap when compared to the cost of litigation, right? And not just鈥�

[00:21:09] Wright: Yeah, that's a good perspective.  

[00:21:12] Ioannidou: Very true.  

[00:21:12] Kim: Yeah. Not just kind of the ultimate kind of dispute amount, well, you know, whether it's a certain dollar amount related to compensation or whatever the case may be, but just like attorney's fees and all those court costs and all those other expenses that come up. So you know, in my trade, you know, it's like, uh, ounce of prevention is worth. 

[00:21:34] Wright: It's worth a pound of cure. I gotcha. Yeah, no, we gotcha. We gotcha. 

[00:21:38] Ioannidou: And you know, in addition to all this, it's interesting that there are so many other legal questions that come up for discussion. And these are around really serious issues of discrimination and harassment. Right?

So we wanted to touch on this and to help us clarify on some common concerns. We have our in-house, 福利姬视频legal counselor, for a legal primer in these areas.

[00:22:08] Rothchild: Hi, I'm Christy Picker Rothchild. I'm a Senior Associate General Counsel with the legal team here at the ADA.

I've been here for, I guess, about two years now, and I've been practicing employment law for more than a decade.

[00:22:21] Wright: So, Christy, what should dentists know about discrimination and harassment laws?

[00:22:27] Rothchild: Basic fairness of treating employees based on their abilities, I think is important to all of us really. Also, we are very much in a time of workforce shortages, especially in the dental area. And so dental practices cannot afford to lose out on good employees due to discrimination.

The other thing is that discrimination has a way of seeping in and undermining staff morale. You know, you want a good office culture where people feel respected and valued. And lastly, failure to provide a work setting free of discrimination can indeed lead to legal liability for a dental practice owner.

So, before I get into the guts of this a little more, I have to do that legal disclaimer thing. My words and comments are not to be considered legal advice. I'm really only gonna touch on kind of high level federal law. But where your dental practice is located, there's almost certainly state and even local laws that could apply.

So, if you do have a question regarding discrimination, it's really important that our dental practitioners talk to their own attorneys. I also recognize there are different types of dental practices out there, right? We've got big DSO鈥檚, we still have our single dentist offices, so some of my comments may relate more to one of those practices types and some comments to the other types and everything in between.

But my hope is you'll find something of value when you listen to this. So with that, let's talk about different types of discrimination. One major type of discrimination is regarding employment related decisions that employers make about an employee, but instead of basing it on that employee's abilities, maybe it's based on a characteristic the employee has or a category that they fall into.

And I'm gonna be very specific here, I'm talking about things like race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation. Frankly, there can even be other types of characteristics depending on where your dental practice is located and how they're protected under those laws. So let me give you an example so you can get a picture in your head of what I'm talking about here.

Let's say you're hiring a new office manager and one of their key responsibilities will be that they have to handle the scheduling of patients, and they'll be using your scheduling software. You know the scheduling software, the one that glitches all the time and has upgrades being issued and it's ever evolving.

And so, someone applies for that job and they're like, I don't know, 60, 65 maybe. And someone also applies and they're 30 something, 35. And immediately, you know, the dental practice owner's like 鈥済ot gotta go with the 30-year-old, you know, they know technology, 60 year olds, who knows?鈥� Well that would be an example of age discrimination because you're not assessing the candidates based on their abilities, but rather just really making an assumption based on their age.

So other than that example that was a hiring decision, just so you're aware. Other kinds of employment related decisions, if made based on that candidate or employee being in that category also can count as discrimination. So we're talking about firing decisions, promotion, salary, even hours that an employee may be assigned to work.

So that's one type of discrimination. A second type takes more the form of harassment, and harassment really is kind of an unwelcome conduct. It can be actions, it can be statements and words that are directed at a person and usually, because that person falls into one of those categories, you're making comments based on their age or again, gender or sexual orientation, those sorts of things.

And that can create what's often called a hostile work environment. And really what that means is a person can't do their best work because the work environment is just so upsetting to them. So again, what's an example of that? Unwelcome physical conduct, statements, even texts that are, or JPEGs that are shared with someone that the person who's looking at it thinks is of, offensive. And even, you know, we all like to joke around in the workplace, makes a day go by faster. But jokes can get outta hand. They can go too far and actually be the basis of this sort of a discrimination claim.

So keep in mind that with this type of harassment, discrimination, that really, that kind of bad behavior can come from a practice owner, a supervisor, a colleague, a vendor, or really un unfortunately, even a patient.

Also, usually the sort of bad behavior. It adds up to create the hostile work environment. It's, it's not just that one time thing, unless something really egregious was said or done.

[00:27:56] Wright: What do dentists need to have in their office regarding these laws?

[00:28:01] Rothchild: We really wanna create a work culture in the dental office that says discrimination is not acceptable.

So how do we do that? As a dental practice owner there are certain requirements, some are good practices, some are actual legal requirements. So let's start with a legal requirement, and that would be a poster of all things, which many of you may have seen. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is a federal agency that oversees discrimination, has a poster called 鈥淜now Your Rights, Workplace discrimination is illegal鈥�, and almost all employers are required to post that in a place where employees will see it. Most postings are still paper, like on a wall, but depending on your setup, it can be on a digital screen that employees see. So that's one way to, uh, send the message that you're not gonna discriminate.

Secondly, create an employee handbook. You may already have a handbook with things like, you know, who to call if you get sick, and your practice vacation policy. But you can also have an important policy in there against discrimination. Even if you're a smaller practice and you don't have a handbook, you can have a standalone discrimination policy, and it should define what discrimination is. It should make clear that discrimination in all forms. Will not be tolerated. And also, and this is very important, it should identify who an employee should reach out to if they think that they are the subject of discrimination.

Another way to send a message that discrimination is not accepted in your workplace is, through training, and depending on the practice size as well as where you're located, you may actually be required to provide anti-discrimination training. For example, the city of Chicago's got that kind of a requirement, even if not required. It is a best practice to provide that to employees and there are lots of third party providers out there that you can obtain that kind of training from.

Lastly, there's the 福利姬视频book called 鈥淭he Dentist Guide to the Law鈥�. And it's not all about discrimination, but there are parts of it that address discrimination. But having that book and even having it in your workplace, again, it sends a message that legal compliance is important to the practice owner but even making it a resource to your employee, is a way to inform them and empower them regarding legal compliance.

But really, and I can't emphasize this enough, how people treat each other also creates that culture. And collegiality treating each other with respect and civility is an important way to help avoid discrimination.

[00:31:11] Ioannidou: As a practice associate, what options does one have if they feel they can't bring a harassment or discrimination complaint to the practice owner?

[00:31:20] Rothchild: So let's say unfortunately, though, you do have concerns that you have been treated in some discriminatory fashion. One recommendation that I would have for you is just to take notes for yourself of what happened. You know, if something, you're in a space, something happened while you all were working on a patient, you know, when you get five minutes to yourself, go sit down and write yourself some notes about what happened, what the date was, where it occurred, were others present.

You know, I'm a big note taker for all sorts of things, but you know, doing that kind of helps provide a breather from me between what happened and then, you know, looking at the notes, helping me think through what occurred. The other thing is if you do, you know, think you've been treated in a discriminatory fashion, having those notes might be helpful to you as you take some of these next steps I'm about to suggest.

So you can report your concerns. If you're comfortable doing so, please report your concerns to someone in your workplace regarding the discrimination. So first of all, if you have a human resources option, if you work in a large dental practice that actually may have an HR department, or at least an HR representative, you know, please reach out to them.

You know, some practices may have an internal person, others may outsource their HR function, but still there is someone to reach out to. Let's say there is no HR, well talk to your supervisor, If your supervisor's the problem, then maybe you need to talk to the practice owner.

Now I recognize sometimes you're not comfortable talking to someone in your own workplace regarding a potential discrimination issue. So who can you consult with outside of the office? Some state dental societies actually have HR assistance, someone you can talk to who can provide some guidance. Also, frankly, an attorney who practices employment law might be someone to speak with.

But you may be thinking, I don't know who to reach out to, what lawyer I should talk to. That's a reasonable thought. If you've ever used any kind lawyer for anything, whether it's corporate reasons or you know, maybe it's estate planning, you can reach out to that attorney and ask them if they have a referral to an employment lawyer. Another thing is almost all state bar associations and local bar associations also have those sorts of referral sources.

And then lastly, you know, you can, you can do that shot in the dark where you do an internet search and literally search for employment attorneys in your area. Some of them do provide, you know, also like a free hour consultation or something. Are you gonna get good legal advice? I don't know. Right? Lawyers are like, everybody, some are good, some aren't. So you'll, you're gonna need to kind of trust your gut on that one.

The other thing is, again, I'm circling back now to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Like I said, that poster that is supposed to be up in your workplace, it literally will have the phone number for the EEOC. It will have their website. It will have an email. And if you're not comfortable standing in front of your poster for five minutes, copying that information down or taking a photo on your phone, literally just Google, EEOC and you're gonna find that information on their website.

So just to wrap this up, really, you know, there are real costs to discrimination. There are costs on the personal level to someone who's being treated poorly or who missed an opportunity, but there's also real costs to a dental office because they're missing out on good people to do the work of dentistry. So we wanna avoid discrimination as much as possible.

We wanna focus instead, as I know, the dental team wants to focus on patients and their care. So with that, I just wanna thank you for having me on the show this morning. You know, I, if you have got other questions, I've already mentioned the EEOC website, the state dental societies as well as the 福利姬视频has some resources.

The last thing I'm gonna throw in, because it's so employment specific, also. It's something called the Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM. It is a membership organization, but they do have some free articles available to you. So if you have a concern, again, do that internet search and you may find some information from SHRM, I usually find their information and suggestions to be pretty good. So with that, thank you very much.

[00:36:19] Ioannidou: Thank you so much for sharing that information with us, Christy.

[00:36:22] Wright: Nice. Okay. Well that was really, really good. Very informative. We really appreciate that feedback, Christy.

I know we're gonna, we're gonna wrap in a moment, but I do wanna jump into something and we're gonna do a rapid fire and so, I wanna first start by saying, Michael, we really, really thank you so much for your time, but before we let you off the hook and before we let you go, we do wanna do a rapid fire Q&A session.

And so I'm gonna kickstart the rapid fire with one of my own questions here, which is. I had a conversation with, you know, friends, we always talk about, you know, our situations when we're in our jobs or whatnot. And I had one friend suggest, why do you need everything spelled out in a contract? Like, do you want every little detail spelled out in a contract? So that's one question for you to be thinking about and you can weave it in here in any way. And then I also want you to go ahead and start by sharing one key takeaway, um, that we can have from renting or owning your own practice space?

[00:37:23] Kim: Great question. Again, I'm going to go back to one of my themes and say that first off, you wanna get a experienced commercial real estate lawyer to review that lease. Okay. They're typically way more complex and a lot more issues addressed than your standard residential lease.

There'll be just more words, more sections, more content. Okay. And you'll kind of ask yourself that question does. Every single point like this need to be addressed. That's, that's kind of a fine balance that all kind of contract attorneys face, you know, brevity versus completeness and, and it's kind of situation by situation for a small dollar contract, you know, maybe it's not worth having a 45-page agreement.

[00:38:08] Wright: Wait, what small dollar? Give us your small dollar?

[00:38:10] Kim: Well, in my procurement world, you know, things can range from, you know, a couple thousand dollars to sky's the limit.

[00:38:19] Ioannidou: I like the sky.

[00:38:22] Wright: Me too.

[00:38:23] Kim: But, yeah.

[00:38:25] Wright: Something to dream and aim for.

[00:38:26] Kim: Exactly. But when you are kind of considering kind of a office space, you know that that commercial real estate attorney not only will have the expertise on kind of what every potential term and issue kind of means, right? But also they have their experience negotiating it against landlords, right? The landlords will often start with. Form leases that are very landlord friendly, right? And just having a tenant attorney that's used to negotiating with those landlord attorneys will kind of get you a long way and kind of get you that represent your interests kind of in the best possible manner.

So yeah, there, there's all sorts of things in a commercial lease that aren't in a residential, like zoning and use restrictions and parking and accessibility requirements and liability and all sorts of things like that, right? So, again, a commercial lease is quite a different animal than just kind of your day-to-day apartment at least.

[00:39:22] Ioannidou: I'm so glad that I work for a public university.

[00:39:25] Wright: You don't have to deal with any of this.

[00:39:27] Ioannidou: None of this, but it's, I know, it's kind of scary overwhelming, especially when you are at the, you know, beginning of your career and you need to make decisions like this out straight out of dental school, right?

Or, out of a one year GPR residency. And then you need to negotiate an associate position or even consider an opportunity of, you know, some people even consider an opportunity of buying or, you know, partnerships. This is overwhelming. There is no doubt about this, right? I mean, so, given all, you know, this kind of energy and requirements, and knowledge and wisdom around the negotiation and the drafting of a contract, and I know Michael, you're going to say find the right lawyer.

I know, I know, right?

Probably this is the number one tip, but how do you think that newly practicing dentists should approach this besides finding the right attorney?

[00:40:40] Kim: Sure. And, and you know, the 福利姬视频actually has great guides for, for new attorneys to kind of address some of these issues. One, there's an 福利姬视频publication, It's called the Dentist Guide to Selecting a Lawyer. Right? So you don't need to take my board for it. Where there's a, you go to ada.org and find that publication. And to your point about establishing a practice, we do have, uh, another publication.

[00:41:03] Wright: Nice.

[00:41:03] Kim: A Dentist Guide to the Law: 246 Things Every Dentist Should Know.

I actually keep a copy on my desk, It's dogeared and has everything as well, so.

[00:41:12] Ioannidou: Not even, not even 250.

[00:41:14] Kim: Yeah. Nice. There actually is a checklist of all the different things that you would need to consider when thinking about a new business practice, right? Everything from pure legal topics, like what sort of legal entity do you wanna choose? Is it a partnership, a limited partnership, LLC, so on and so forth.

All the way to kind of more business type considerations in that checklist. Things like, you know, market analysis and other types of just day-to-day business things, you know, websites, privacy regulations, confidentially, HIPAA compliance, all those types of things that would come up as a new dentist as you're beginning your practice.

So again, sometimes you just don't know what you don't know when you're starting off as a new dentist or starting a new practice. So, find that, seek out those resources. And this is not, again, not just something that dentists face, it's anyone starting a new business, you know, they'll have to kind of look into all these things as well.

[00:42:15] Ioannidou: No, this is amazing. I think these resources are amazing and it's great that they are available to everybody because you can take your time.

[00:42:22] Wright: Yeah. I have a few of those publications too.

[00:42:24] Ioannidou: Right? You can take your time, you can examine this. You can, you know, and I think it's so much easier when you have things in front of you on the screen, rather that someone whispering secrets to you or like, 鈥淕o do this. Hire an attorney鈥�. I think it's nicer to have it all organized in front of you for sure. This is a great resource.

[00:42:43] Wright: We have to link 'em all in the show notes for our listeners because I'm sure these are valuable resources for our listeners to have and our viewers on YouTube. So, I do have one more.

Before we let you run, you mentioned you had kids earlier, and so what if one of your children said they decided they wanted to become a dentist? Talk to us or close us off with the advice that you would give them about accepting their first associateship. So, they're about to become an associate. But before they do you want to give them these types of it, these pieces of advice.

[00:43:21] Kim: Yeah. You know, I think, you know, more as a parent and not as a attorney. I think when they approach the negotiation process, you can kind of just kind of keep a couple things in mind right. Before you actually even get into a negotiation. Just know what you want. Is it more compensation? Is it more flexibility, working hours, that sort of thing as well.

[00:43:44] Wright: We want both. We wanna be paid and we wanna take time off.

[00:43:49] Kim: Yeah. And again, I think there's no reason to be adversarial in negotiations, so I would, you know, encourage them to stay positive and friendly.

That's great. And try to make that negotiation a win-win for everyone, right? Because, you know, some things may be non-negotiable, but really by having those kind of positions that are important to you in mind before heading into that negotiation, you know, maybe those are some wins that can get along the way as well.

[00:44:15] Ioannidou: No, this is a, I think it's really important point, because negotiation and discussion should not be a fight, right? It should be coming from a very constructive and positive place. Because if you start, if you negotiate as a fight, I mean, yeah, that's, that's not gonna work. It's not gonna work.

[00:44:37] Wright: Thank you. So good.

[00:44:39] Announcer: On the next Dental Sound Bites,

[00:44:41] Ioannidou: Season seven coming soon! People.

[00:44:44] Wright: We can't wait to bring you all some of the conversations. More of our guests, more of our fun and our curiosity about the topics and trends that dentists actually care about. In the meantime, you all, we want you to don't miss a beat. Make sure that you're catching up with all of the episodes from our past seasons on YouTube or wherever you are catching your podcast.

[00:45:08] Ioannidou: We'll see you soon, everybody.

[00:45:10] Wright: Yes. We can't wait for. Season seven coming soon!

[00:45:13] Ioannidou: Season seven.

[00:45:20] Wright: Can you let our audience know where they can learn a little bit more about this topic if they want to just do some digging, as they're listening in another tab?

[00:45:30] Kim: Yeah, absolutely. ada.org is a great jumping off point. There's a section on the site for you mentioned. New dentists, there's a whole section on the website for there.

And there you'll find again a lot of those resources dealing with not just employment agreements and employment law, but all sorts of legal questions that might come up as a new associate.

[00:45:52] Ioannidou: I love it.

[00:45:54] Wright: Well, thanks again for stopping by. We really, really enjoyed you.

[00:45:59] Kim: Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

[00:46:00] Ioannidou: Thank you so much for joining us today, Michael. This is, it's so good. We are so grateful to have you, and the ADA鈥檚 team information on the subjects. And to our listeners, we are going to link all the resources as my friend ArNelle said, to the notes of our episodes so we can have everything well organized on ada.org/podcast.

Yes. If you guys, you listeners liked and found this episode very interesting, and I'm sure you did. Please share the episode with a friend, then be sure to subscribe wherever you are listening so you can get all the latest episodes.

[00:46:40] Wright: Absolutely. And don't forget to rate it, write a review and follow us on social media.

[00:46:47] Ioannidou: Yeah. And Bye bye!

[00:46:50] Wright: Bye bye everybody. Goodbye people.

[00:46:52] Ioannidou: Goodbye people. See you soon. See you on season seven.

[00:46:56] Wright: Woohoo.

[00:47:00] Announcer: Thank you for joining us. Dental Sound Bites is an 福利姬视频 podcast. You can also find this show resources and more on the 福利姬视频Member app and online at ada.org/podcast.