In less than two months, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States. President-elect Trump has already announced that he will nominate Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez Delemer to be the next Secretary of Labor. It remains to be seen whether the Trump DOL will continue the current administration's targeting of the healthcare industry.
Indeed, under President Biden, the DOL has had a busy year with a focus on targeting the health care industry. The DOL issued more than a dozen press releases from Memorial Day to Labor Day alone related to settlements or judgments with various health care providers. Settlements and judgments range from five figures to $36 million.
The Department of Labor's tenacity in pursuing potential wage and hour offenders in the health care industry has been highlighted with a recent ruling against a group of nursing homes in Pennsylvania. As a result of the investigation, the DOL filed suit against the operators of 15 medical facilities, alleging that the employers failed to adequately pay overtime. After a 13-day trial involving nearly 50 witnesses, a federal judge awarded 6,000 current and former workers at skilled nursing, rehabilitation and assisted living facilities in the Keystone State 3,580 in back overtime pay. He was ordered to pay $1,000,000 and liquidate damages. The court found that the employers at these facilities engaged in actionable misconduct, including: (i) Willfully fails to pay an employee for all hours worked, including work during meal breaks; (ii) failure to incorporate all promised compensation, including non-discretionary bonuses and shift differentials, when calculating overtime pay; (iii) avoid paying overtime by falsely treating employees as exempt from the overtime requirements of the law; (iv) does not maintain accurate records of employee hours worked and compensation owed for those hours; These wage and hour issues can typically be avoided by implementing best practices and compliance protocols.
The DOL's busy year so far has been a wake-up call for healthcare industry employers. The jury is still out on whether the next administration will continue to tighten its grip on the healthcare industry, but with the right protocols and procedures in place, no matter which party is in power, an adverse outcome in an investigation can be avoided. The risk will be minimized. Best practices dictate that all employers should evaluate and audit their wage and hour practices. This includes: (i) ensuring that employees exempt from overtime pay are properly classified under applicable federal and state laws; (ii) ensure that independent contractors are properly classified under applicable federal and state laws; (iii) ensure that non-discretionary bonuses and other applicable compensation are included in the calculation of non-exempt employees' regular wages for overtime; (iv) ensure compliance with applicable meal period and break laws; Employers in the healthcare industry need to be prepared in the event of a Department of Labor audit. We work with outside counsel to ensure proper compliance with various federal and state wage and hour laws, reducing the risk of litigation and potential damages.
