Dr. L terminated Sarah for poor job performance. Sarah was defensive and upset in the termination meeting. She didn’t take any responsibility for her performance and blamed others. She stormed out of the meeting.

Dr. L received a threatening letter from a law firm representing Sarah, saying they were going to sue for wrongful termination.

Dr. L called his attorney and provided copies of his policy manual, job description, and signed documentation outlining Sarah’s performance issues. The law firm dropped their attack and Dr. L didn’t hear anything from Sarah again.

Why?

Any discussion about HR documentation, such as employee handbooks, job descriptions, and documentation, can be boring and tempting to ignore. There are certainly much more exciting things to discuss in the world of dentistry.

The above case study is a great example of how beneficial basic HR documentation can be. We have seen more law firms send out “scary letters,” especially sending these to dental practices because most dental practices do not have their ducks in a row. We even had a client who received one of these letters, and the law firm was churning them out so rapidly they forgot to change the business name in one of the paragraphs. It referenced a pizza restaurant.

We have also consistently seen that when a practice has their ducks in a row in terms of documentation, the law firm representing the employee does not take the case, because it’s basically a losing case.

We also see a similar effect when it’s a state labor board claim. There is still a discovery process where all of the employer’s documentation is turned over to the state, and then the state makes their determination. But in many cases if everything is in line, the case basically goes away. The HR documentation is also helpful when responding to unemployment claims.

Similar to clinical charting, HR documentation follows the same adage: “If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.”

For a solid HR documentation foundation, with everything you need to protect your practice, check out our HR Director Package.