Noncompete agreements in physician contracts have been a controversial subject in recent years as several lawsuits and legislative updates have brought their legality and necessity into question.
In a Dec. 28 blog post published on physician-focused viewpoint website KevinMD.com, Sharisse Stephenson, MD, outlines why noncompete agreements are “quietly worsening” the U.S.’s ongoing physician shortage.
Here are six takeaways from the article:
1. Dr. Stephenson previously worked as a neurologist in Portsmouth, Va., but writes that she was forced out of her role under a two-year noncompete agreement that restricted her from practicing neurology anywhere within 15 miles of her former employer, a hospital system.
“That radius covers the entire community where many of my patients live, and the community I still call home,” she said.
2. She argues that the region already struggles with a shortage of neurologists and lengthy wait times for care, including for emergency services. In small communities like Portsmouth, even one less specialty provider “creates ripples: longer wait times, fewer outpatient slots, fewer inpatient consults and days when the hospital has no neurological support at all,” Dr. Stephenson writes.
3. She acknowledges that while these agreements were originally designed to protect “legitimate business interests,” patients are not the same as “clients” in other business settings, and their care should not be disrupted by contracts meant to protect non-clinical interests.
4. According to the American Medical Association, 45% of physicians are bound by noncompetes, and geographic restrictions often cover every nearby hospital in a small or rural community.
5. “The burden falls hardest on safety-net communities. Portsmouth, like many medically underserved cities, already struggles to recruit and retain physicians,” Dr. Stephenson writes. “Broad non-competes don’t just ‘protect business interests.’ They remove essential services from the very patients who can least afford to travel.”
6. Dr. Stephenson urges Virginia to adopt noncompete reforms, including prohibiting noncompete agreements for physicians and advanced practice providers in designated shortage areas; requiring hospital systems to justify existing noncompete agreements; and allowing physicians to buy out noncompetes at fair market value so they can remain in their communities.
