If you are the owner of a dental practice, you inevitably have to consider the long-term vision of your business. This can include self-evaluations of your practice, whether you want to sell and when, as well as the impacts each of these decisions might have on your finances. As these can be life-altering choices for your future and retirement, you should consider a number of thoughts along the way.

Dental practice buy-ins and the partnership agreements they often require can be challenging issues for any practice, and carry with them a number of potential problems and legal ramifications for the unprepared. Understanding the legal aspects of practice buy-ins and partnership agreements will encourage you to solve problems even before they start. Like any change to a business, preparation is key. Once you have completed your due diligence, valued the practice, and agreed upon a purchase price and financing structure, a partnership agreement will need to be agreed upon and drafted.

What does a non-competition agreement mean?

There are usually three scenarios when non-competition agreements or as some refer to as, restrictive covenants come into play.

Shareholder agreements: what, exactly, are they? How will they help you form the backbone of your dental practice? If you're thinking about forming a partnership with another dentist, especially if you're thinking about forming a partnership with several dentists, it's important that you understand the distinction between shareholder agreements and partnership agreements--and how shareholder agreements can help improve the functionality of your practice. 

Properly classifying your staff is one of the most crucial aspects of managing a practice. In fact, failure to do so can result in major problems; this includes fines and penalties from local, state, and federal agencies. Further, improper classifications can result in unpaid overtime, back pay of wages, interest, and your time. In escalated situations, a lawsuit or class action lawsuit could be filed against you, resulting in hefty additional attorney’s fees. The best approach to preventing any of these nightmarish possibilities from occurring is being proactive in familiarizing yourself with the meaning and understanding of classifications in relations to independent contractors and employee exemptions.

Once you have decided that you would like to sell your dental practice, there are a number of steps that you can take which will aid you in the success and compliance of the sale. You will undoubtedly want to get the most “bang for your buck” with the least hassle. Further, you will likely want to make the transfer as seamless as possible. With the ability to properly prepare in advance, you can easily make a sale and transfer your practice and be confident in those actions.

When you are looking to buy or sell a dental practice, it is important to protect your legal interests by paying special attention to the various contracts that the dental attorneys will be preparing for you.  The letter of intent and the purchase agreement are vital to any successful transaction as it ensures what the parties agreed to is included in the agreement. However, you must be very careful because if it’s not in the purchase agreement then it’s not part of the transaction even if it is in the letter of intent or you’ve been discussing it verbally with the other party.    

When you start your dental practice, you want to be sure that you're fully covered legally. Just like purchasing malpractice or disability insurance helps protect you in the event something doesn’t happen as planned, setting up the legal structure of your dental practice correctly will also help protect you.

An employee files a harassment claim against her direct supervisor. Some time later, before the supervisor has been advised of the employee's claim, the employee commits a fire-able offense. The supervisor wishes to terminate the employee. Can you fire the employee without concern over a retaliation complaint, since the supervisor didn't even know about the employee's harassment allegations?

Just as the rise of the television set impacted advertising in the mid-20^th century, social media (and the internet in general) are changing the nature of the ad business in a variety of fields. Professionals such as dentists, doctors, and attorneys are beginning to take note of the ways in which the internet – and social media in particular - can be used to market their practices and even to communicate with their current patients and clients. Now is always a good time to examine your approach to advertising and making adjustments as necessary. But before you do, you should ensure that you are familiar with state laws and professional regulations which dictate which advertisements are permissible.