Asset Protection for Medical Practices
Every medical practice, whether a single physician in one office or a group spanning several locations, carries a liability risk unlike most other businesses. Malpractice is not a risk tied to the entity. It is a risk that exists in the individual conduct of the physician, regardless of how many locations the practice operates. A solo physician needs a structure that separates personal wealth from a malpractice claim just as much as a growing practice does.
As a practice expands to multiple locations, this same risk compounds. A single incident at one location should never place other locations, shared assets, or personal wealth at risk. For a multi-location practice, the stakes are higher still. Proper legal structuring separates each location's liability while protecting the practice's shared assets and each physician's individual wealth.
Medical Practice Risks
Firms often stop at the formation a professional limited liability company or professional association for the practice. At Deming Law we go beyond formation to protect your assets. There are two common risks a professional entity will face. First, a professional entity does not protect an individual physician from personal liability for their own malpractice. That protection comes only from malpractice insurance and personal asset protection planning, never from the entity itself. Second, operating multiple clinic locations under one single entity means a catastrophic claim against one location exposes the assets and operations of every other location.
The professional entity does serve an important purpose. It protects each physician from a colleague's malpractice. Without it, one physician's negligence could expose every other physician in the practice personally. This protection has a limit. It does not extend to a physician's own conduct. Physicians remain personally exposed for their own malpractice regardless of how the practice entity is formed.
The Structure: Separate Entities Per Location
Deming Law structures multi-location practices so that each physical clinic location operates as its own separate professional entity, owned directly by its licensed physicians in compliance with Florida's corporate practice of medicine rule. A claim arising at one location is confined to that location. It cannot reach the assets, patients, or operations of the other locations.
Above these clinic entities sits a holding company, connected through a lease arrangement rather than direct equity ownership. The holding company owns the practice's real estate and expensive equipment, such as imaging machines and surgical equipment. These are the assets a plaintiff wants most, and they are held out of reach of a claim against any single clinic. The holding company employs no staff and enters no client-facing contracts of its own. Its only relationship to the practice is the lease itself, which keeps it insulated from any claim arising out of patient care or employment.
Individual Physician Protection
Entity structuring protects the practice. It does not protect the individual physician. Each physician must carry individual malpractice insurance sized to their own risk. Beyond insurance, personal asset protection planning, including trusts and personal holding entities, protects a physician's individual wealth in the event a judgment exceeds insurance limits. We coordinate this personal layer alongside the practice's corporate structure so nothing is left exposed.
A Holding Company for What You Own
A physician's malpractice risk comes from what they do. Their personal wealth comes from what they own: a home, investments, savings, and other personal assets. These two categories must never sit in the same entity. Deming Law structures a personal holding entity to hold a physician's individual assets separately from their practice interests. A judgment arising from professional conduct then has no path to reach personal wealth held inside it. For married physicians, Florida offers an additional layer of protection. Assets titled jointly with a spouse as tenants by the entirety are generally protected from a creditor of only one spouse. If a malpractice judgment is entered against the physician alone, properly titled marital assets can remain outside that creditor's reach.
Ownership Structure and the Corporate Practice of Medicine Rule
Many physicians want a spouse to share in the ownership and value of the practice they have built together. Florida law places a real limit on how this can be done. Under Florida's Professional Service Corporation Act, a professional association or professional limited liability company rendering medical services may only be owned by individuals licensed in that same profession. A spouse who is not a licensed physician generally cannot hold a direct ownership interest in the clinical entity itself.
This restriction applies to the clinical entity, not to a holding company above it. A holding company that does not render medical services holds no equity in the clinical entity. Instead, it owns the practice's real estate and equipment, which it leases to the clinical entity. The licensed physicians retain ownership and control of the clinical PA or PLLC. A non-physician spouse can be a member of the holding company. This lets a physician's spouse participate in the ownership and value of the practice's business assets while keeping the clinical entity properly licensed and compliant.
Flat-Fee Pricing
Our services are based on a flat fee structure, providing you with upfront, transparent pricing for the work we deliver. Our objective is the same as yours, to protect your business and see it succeed, as your trusted legal partner. Therefore, you can reach out freely without worrying about additional costs. We encourage you to call or email us when you have a question or concern, because better communication leads to better outcomes. We built our practice on a strong base of long-term and referred clients as a result of being genuinely invested in their success.
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