For example, creating an LLC operating agreement could be worthwhile. Though state law does not require this document, it can contain various information and agreement terms that could help protect you and your company. Having this agreement on record could even act as a safeguard should a dispute arise, depending on the circumstances.

What should the agreement include?

This agreement can house a significant amount of important information regarding the operations of your company. Some of the information can act as an introduction to the company and include the LLC’s name, details regarding the Articles of Organization you filed with the state, the purpose of the business, its duration and more. The agreement can also include information about the LLC’s members and ownership interests. The following are a few details to include on that front:

• Names of the original members
• The percentage of ownership interest each founding member has
• The number of monetary contributions each founder will make or has made
• How new members will be accepted
• Circumstances under which additional contributions from members may be required

It is also wise to include management information in the document, particularly whether one or more members will manage the company or if the company will hire an employee to act as manager. You may also want to include stipulations stating that, even if the company hires an outside party to act as the manager, the members of the LLC still have power to approve certain decisions before they can move forward.

How can you create the agreement?

Though an operating agreement is not legally required in Kentucky, you still want to ensure that the document is legally binding. If it is not, it may not offer as much protection in the future as you would hope, should the need for it arise. Fortunately, you can gain more information and insight into how to create a legally binding document and protect your company as best as possible.

Of course, construction can come with its difficulties as well, and you know that delays in a project can turn an enjoyable process into a nightmare. While you always do your best to ensure that you and your team stick to a schedule as well as possible, it is not uncommon for the homeowners themselves to cause delays.

How do homeowners cause delays?

As an experienced contractor, you may have already seen your fair share of issues arise when Kentucky homeowners commit any of the following actions that are likely pet peeves of yours:

• The homeowners do not finalize the design plans early, or they decide to make critical changes after the project is already underway. In some cases, this could mean having to start over on certain sections of the project.
• The homeowners do not have a set schedule they want to work by. You understand the importance of a schedule, but if the homeowners do not have a timetable or want to postpone work often, serious delays can occur.
• They do not participate in pre-construction meetings. While you may appreciate the trust your clients have in you and your construction team, you know this lack of participation could result in homeowners misunderstanding certain aspects of the project.

While it is often homeowners who find themselves disgruntled with construction delays, such issues can cause major problems for your company as well.

What if a homeowner sues for delays?

It is not uncommon for homeowners to take legal action when they feel that a construction project has faced unnecessary delays and resulted in difficulties. However, if you and your company face such a claim, you may have a strong defense if you have evidence that the homeowners themselves caused much of the delay. Any time the threat of a lawsuit comes against your company, you may find it useful to gain reliable insight into your legal options from an experienced construction law attorney.

You may work in the billing department of a hospital or another medical facility, and throughout the course of your duties, you may have suspected that doctors were overbilling patients and insurance companies. At first, you may have thought that the doctors were making valid entries for bills, but upon closer inspection, you started to suspect wrongdoing.

What does overbilling look like?

Overbilling patients and insurance companies is a fraudulent act. You certainly do not want the defrauding of anyone to occur, especially sick patients in need of help. Of course, you do not want to make wrongful accusations either. However, if you have noticed any of the following issues with medical bills, you may have reason to blow the whistle:

• A doctor or multiple doctors consistently provide unnecessary services to patients in order to charge for those services.
• Medical staff members may charge for services that they did not perform.
• A medical professional bills a patient for each service individually when the services could have been bundled, thus saving the patient money.
• Staff members receive referral kickbacks from other providers.
• Doctors bill patients for more expensive versions of a service.

Of course, health care fraud can come in other forms too. As a result, it is understandable if you feel unsure about your suspicions. You may also worry about coming forward with your suspicions out of fear of retaliation. Fortunately, you could seek protection under the federal False Claims Act.

What can the act do?

If you feel it is necessary to blow the whistle on the company for which you work, the FCA could allow you to file a lawsuit on behalf of the United States government and obtain a reward, typically a percentage of proceeds collected from the government, if the company is prosecuted.

If you believe that you have reason to take such action, you may want to discuss the matter with an experienced Kentucky attorney. Your legal counsel can help you assess your suspicions, determine whether you have reason to move forward with a claim and explain how the FCA could protect you.

However, the success of any business starts with having clear goals and strategies. One of the most critical aspects of setting up your business is choosing its formation. Also known as the business structure, a business formation helps determine how your business will function while also offering liability protections.

Types of business formations

Each kind of business structure has its advantages and disadvantages. Understanding every type can help you figure out which structure will benefit your business the most. Here are the most common types of formations:

1. Sole proprietorships: As it sounds, a sole proprietorship means that you are the only owner of your business. This type of formation is the simplest as it doesn’t involve any fees or paperwork to set up. With sole proprietorship, only you are responsible for your company’s profits, debts and management.
2. Business partnerships: It’s common for businesses to have two or more owners. Splitting the responsibilities can help your business run more smoothly, and each owner will be liable for debts or claims. Business partnerships can face challenges when the partners don’t see eye-to-eye, which is why you should create a partnership agreement before you begin working together.
3. Corporation: Unlike the previous two options, a corporation is its own legal entity. This means that it is created solely to conduct your business, separate from any of the owners. In this form, the corporation will have to pay taxes and can face liability claims of its own.
4. Limited liability company (LLC): Think of an LLC as a hybrid of a partnership and a corporation. Owners can benefit from receiving profits without taxation of the company, such as in the partnership model, while the corporation model protects them from any personal liabilities.

Choosing what’s best for you

Before you settle on a business model, you should research every type of formation that is available. Make sure to consider all the factors, such as the costs, risks, ease of set up and termination, expansion and taxes.

If you’re still struggling to decide what’s best for your business, consult with an experienced attorney. They can help you through understanding each business structure so you can make an informed decision.

If you are considering entering an independent medical practice, the contract is arguably even more crucial than if you were to take a job at a hospital or clinic. In these settings, procedures and human resources departments are more established and, therefore, standardized. You must discover whether the medical practice you intend to join has everything in order before you commit.

8 things to watch for

• What is the nature of your relationship with the practice? Are you an employee or an independent contractor?
• If there is an affiliation with a hospital, find out if you will be expected to practice in that hospital. Some hospitals have better reputations than others. You may or may not be comfortable with a connection to that institution.
• Apart from clinic time, what other duties will you be responsible for? Will you need to participate in business development? Attend meetings at an affiliated hospital or within the practice? If so, how much time will the practice expect you to dedicate to these activities?
• How will they compensate you? Is it a base salary plus bonus, a fee-for-service arrangement or item-by-item reimbursement with a value-based payment component?
• What quality parameters does this facility uphold? Are you comfortable with the facility’s standards?
• What disclosure and obligations does the contract include? Are you amenable to all that’s listed? Examples might consist of staff privileges, on-call expectations or an agreement to bill only through the practice.
• What benefits does the contract include? Will the practice cover continuing education? What about insurance and retirement?
• What are the conditions for termination? How long will the contract be in effect? How can you terminate the contract? Can the practice terminate only with cause or at will? Is there a non-compete clause?

Contracts are complex. Make sure you get the facts before agreeing to take the job. These eight points are a place to start when evaluating whether a job offer at an independent medical practice is right for you.

Taking responsibility for the mistakes you made is important. But the customer must pay you regardless, though many may try to avoid doing so. If you find yourself in this situation, keeping these tips in mind can help you collect the debt owed to you.

Take preventative measures

Drafting an agreement upfront can save you from nonpayment. When your client signs this contract, they then agree to pay you a certain amount for your services. They will pay you this amount regardless of the outcome. You could also collect part of their payment upfront. Doing so may help lessen the sting of potential nonpayment thereafter.

Work with the client

Working with your dissatisfied client could prove a creative way of receiving your payment. Before you adopt a defensive stance, ask them – and yourself – some questions about why they’re withholding it. Were they dissatisfied with your design? Or did you make a fixable mistake? By adopting a conciliatory tone, you can improve the odds that your client will decide to pay you.

Go through the courts

Your client may still refuse to pay you, no matter your agreement or efforts to make things right. If they keep resisting, you will want to pursue a small claims settlement or a civil suit against them. Under Kentucky law, if the amount the client owes you is $2,500 or less, your case will go to small claims court. If they owe you a sum greater than $2,500 – or make false allegations of mistakes to avoid payment – then you will file a civil suit.

When you perform a construction service for a client, they must pay you. This agreement remains true whether you completed the job as expected or made a mistake. Working with a lawyer who has construction litigation experience can help you achieve the recourse you deserve.

There is an important law you should know about: the federal False Claims Act. It was set up by Congress to give incentives to private individuals to blow the whistle on fraud or mismanagement. If you bring a successful case under the False Claims Act, you will be rewarded with a substantial percentage of whatever the government recovers through your efforts.

This is called a “qui tam” lawsuit. When you file one, you notify the Department of Justice and give it the evidence you have. At that point, the DOJ may intervene and take over your case. This is usually a good thing, as they will bring the full resources of the federal government to bear on the case, making it more likely that you will win. However, if the DOJ does not intervene, you can still move forward with the case on your own and stand to win a greater percentage.

How much money is at stake? A lot. When a defendant in a False Claims Act lawsuit is found guilty of fraud, they generally are required to pay three times the total loss sustained by the government, along with an additional $5,000 to $10,000 for every false claim it made.

When the government intervenes, qui tam plaintiffs receive between 15% and 25% of the full amount received by the government. When it does not, the plaintiff is entitled to between 25% and 30% of the recovery.

Depending on the exact circumstances, you could be entitled to a share of a million- or multimillion-dollar damage award.

Do I have to have first-hand knowledge and hard evidence?

Not necessarily. With the increasing complexity of fraud against the government, the Justice Department is looking for law-abiding people to help. Often, it’s enough that you have a general idea of what kind of fraud is occurring.

In the healthcare field, you might have noticed fraudulent activity such as:

• Billing for services that were never provided
• Billing more than once for the same service
• Billing for unqualified service providers
• Justifying more expensive services or procedures than necessary
• Providing unnecessary services to Medicare or Medicaid patients
• Self-dealing, where doctors refer patients to facilities they have a stake in
• Kickbacks, where a facility pays a doctor for referrals

What is required to file a qui tam lawsuit?

Whether or not you are in the position to have direct knowledge of the fraud, you can file a qui tam lawsuit whenever you discover fraud against a government program that has not been publicly disclosed by others.

If the fraud has already been disclosed, you may still file a qui tam lawsuit if you have direct, independent knowledge of the fraud. You should contact a law firm that handles False Claims Act qui tam lawsuits before taking any action. The law firm can help ensure that you take all the steps necessary to put yourself in the best position to collect your reward.

Won’t I just get fired?

It’s illegal to retaliate against employees who file or participate in qui tam actions, but it does happen. You should discuss your concerns with your qui tam attorney to minimize the chances of retaliation. If your employer does retaliate, you could be entitled to double the amount of damages you sustain as a result.