There has been a historical trend in the med-tech industry for organizations to explore avenues to hire temporary staff (specifically their clinical teams) under the 1099 model, leading to misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
Despite this serving as a potential entry-point into the established medical device or diagnostic markets, it is evident that misclassifying workers as independent contractors is a bad idea for business. This problem is often motivated by organizations attempting to keep costs down while unknowingly adopting an unnecessary amount of risk and liability.
This risk and liability extends beyond the walls of their organization to their partner organizations. It's important to have visibility into and assess the potential risk and liability when hiring 1099 clinical teams or when initiating a new partnership with one of these employers. With the U.S. Department of Labor more strictly enforcing the classification of employees, med-tech companies must critically evaluate the risks they are exposed to should charges be filed, an accident happen on-site, or if there's a violation of overtime laws, among other independent contractor risks.