WASHINGTON, DC-More often than not, today’s medical offices are businesses employing numerous staff people, as well as other physicians. In a seminar at the recent annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, panelists described the many legal pitfalls of employing people in a medical office. Most of them revolved around accusations and charges of discrimination-which often appear difficult to avoid.
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February 2008You Can Hardly Say Anything Anymore
Sally Garr, JD, a partner in the Washington, DC, law firm of Patton Boggs and Chair of its Employment Law Group, spent more than a half-hour describing the many ways in which an employer can be sued for discrimination-and the many ways in which he or she can lose the case.
Although some of the examples she presented were more relevant to academic institutions and hospitals, Ms. Garr emphasized that a physician in private practice is indeed an employer and is just as responsible for maintaining a nondiscriminatory environment as are employers with much larger staffs.