Rural and Underserved Health Care Staffing Act

Independent-contractor rules for locum clinicians

If enacted, this bill would treat certain locum tenens clinicians as independent contractors rather than employees for a set of federal laws and programs. It would apply only to a "qualified locum tenens physician or advanced care practitioner" who provides temporary medical or clinical services at a single site for up to one continuous year, is in one of the listed clinician categories (for example, MD/DO, dentist, podiatrist, optometrist, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, or CRNA), and works under a written agreement with a health care facility or a contracting agency. For purposes of the named federal laws and programs (including the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, ERISA, the Public Health Service Act, and HHS-administered programs as described), pay to those qualifying clinicians would be treated as pay to an independent contractor and the hosting entity would not be treated as the employer. The bill would not apply if the parties expressly agree in a written contract to an employer-employee relationship. It would not change tax rules under the Internal Revenue Code, Social Security benefit calculations, unemployment compensation eligibility, or Medicare and Medicaid eligibility or reimbursement. The rule would apply only to services performed on or after the date of enactment and would be implemented by the relevant federal agencies, with HHS handling the HHS programs named in the bill.