So much time is spent focusing on the importance of patient’s privacy in dental practices that very little thought goes into staff privacy. If you use a workplace cell phone to send personal WhatsApp messages, can your boss take a look at what you’ve sent? What about your internet history? Can your employer monitor what you get up to outside work? There are a lot of questions about workplace privacy that need to be answered.

Due to the nationwide economic collapse caused by the coronavirus, many people throughout the US are currently receiving more money through unemployment benefits than they were from their jobs. According to Business Insider, around 50% of workers in the US can currently earn more money by collecting unemployment benefits than working their regular jobs.

Let’s get straight to the point. Yes, a dental hygienist can be an independent contractor, but if only he/she appropriately follows the rules.

Some will tell you that a dental office is completely within its rights to treat you as an independent contractor, if that’s what you agreed to. Others will tell you that it’s straight up illegal for a dental office to classify you as an independent contractor.

So, which is it? 

Employers have a tendency to hire new talent and assume that the hard work is done. The truth is that onboarding a new dentist or dental hygienist is often just the beginning - the beginning of a long adjustment period, the beginning of training and assessment, and the beginning of all the paperwork, especially if you’ve made the mistake of relying on a turn-and-burn temp agency that has its bottom line in mind rather than your own long-term needs. After the placement agency fills your job opening, who has to deal with the results, whether good or bad? You, of course.